Week 4: Washington, D.C.

The White House
American Folk Art Exhibition at the Smithsonian Museum of National Art

USHMM

Statuary Hall

Rainbow over the Kennedy Center

Father John Carroll, founder of Georgetown

Stairs from "The Exorcist"

(I wrote this post while sitting in LaGuardia waiting on my flight to go back to the Vineyard. Michael is currently deciphering my shorthand as I transcribe it)

Currently I am without paper or computer, so I'm documenting my trip on my copy of the US Senate Directory. I can see Ewalt cringing as he read that. The original plan for the week was to fly into D.C. on Sunday night, take a rental car to Manassas, stay in a hotel, and spend 9-5 on Monday in a special US Airways training course. Regrettably (and I say this with the slightest hint of sarcasm) bad weather and air traffic prohibited me from getting on a flight out of the Vineyard, thus training was taken off my itinerary. I was completely fine with this turn of events as it gave me an additional day to spend in D.C..

My trip to D.C. officially started on Monday afternoon after making flights out of MVY and LGA. We're slated to add a direct flight from MVY to DCA this week but unfortunately not soon enough for my trip. After boarding the Metro, I made my way to Foggy Bottom Station with the intention of exploring the Georgetown neighborhood. My good friend Kevin spent a summer in D.C. working for Senator Isakson and was nice enough to plan a 2 day, 2000 word itinerary of things to see and do around the city, and Georgetown was my first stop. The walk from Foggy Bottom to Georgetown was great. It took me down M Street (Georgetown strip) past the Exorcist stairs (the staircase that was used in the film--creepy!), past The Tombs (served as the inspiration for St. Elmo's Fire), to the Iron Gates of Georgetown's campus. Conveniently as I entered campus, a tour had just started, and being a former college tour guide myself, I relished the opportunity to sneak onto a campus tour. Although UGA's tour is far more humorous, and we don't walk backwards, the tour itself was very enjoyable and certainly gave me something to think about for future career sites. I could definitely see myself ending up on Georgetown's campus. I loved it.

After the tour concluded, I spent the better part of 2 hours losing myself in the Georgetown neighborhood. Kevin had mapped out a great route through the streets of Georgetown that enabled me to to see some of its historic buildings. By then my friend Tim had gotten off work, so we regrouped at his condo before going to see the free nightly performance on the Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center. The performer was Robin Bullock:

"The multi-instrumentalist, who displays virtuosity on guitar, cittern, and mandolin, blends the ancient melodies of the Celtic lands and their Appalachian descendants."

You can see the June 23rd performance here: http://www.kennedy-center.org/programs/millennium/search_results.cfm?RequestTimeout=500#

The performance was great, and the views from the waterfront were spectacular. We spent some time watching the Potomac (rowers!!) and we stopped by GW's campus so Tim could give me a tour of the Law School before grabbing dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant (and it's driving me crazy but I can't remember the name of it) for which I felt terribly under-dressed. Tim dropped me off at Mr. and Mrs. Parker's (Laura's parents) house in East Falls Church for the night.

Day 2 stared early. Kevin was thoughtful enough to schedule me a tour of the Capitol headed by Sen. Isakson's interns, so I spent the bulk of my morning checking out the Russell/Capitol buildings. I also had an opportunity to sit in on the Senate Gallery. The Capitol building is incredible and I was very fortunate to get a personal tour on such short notice. When I had wrapped things up on Capitol Hill, the next item on my list was the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The USHMM was the one destination that was an absolute must while I was in D.C. As a history major whose specialization was 20th century European military history, I have taken every class that UGA offers on the Holocaust, and much of our course literature has come from information compiled from the USHMM. It was one of the most personal and intense experiences I have had to be able to walk through the exhibition and see firsthand the artifacts, documents, photographs, and videos that I've spent so much of my college career studying. It is a truly sobering and terrifying experience. Part of me wishes that I was pursuing my M.A. in history because the whole formation and execution of the Nazi's "Final Solution" just seems so far out of the realm of human capability. Needless to say the visit meant a lot to me. The USHMM also had a special exhibition on the 1936 Berlin Olympics which was very interesting, especially since the Summer Olympics are about a month away.

Tim met me outside with a pair of road bikes and we made our way to Old Ebbitt Grill for lunch (again on Kevin's suggestion). I ate altogether way too much and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. I couldn't leave D.C. without visiting one of the Smithsonians, so we elected the National Gallery of American Art/National Portrait Gallery. The museum had some really amazing artwork, but having just visited the Met in NY, it's hard to compare the two. I would have liked to do the National Air and Space Museum, but we were running short on time, so instead we put our road bikes to use and did a tour of the nation's highlights: US Supreme Court, the White House, Washington Monument, Jefferson, Lincoln, and WWII Memorials. Biking around D.C. was fantastic--it is definitely the best way to get around. D.C. itself is beautiful. It's very clean, has tons of green space, and it's reasonably easy to get around (I love cities with good public transportation systems!). I've already told Mom and Dad that I could really see myself in a job at GW or Georgetown in the future. After the bike tour, Laura's parents picked me up from the Metro and we watched Game 2 of the College World Series. It was bleak.

My two days in D.C. were a ton of fun and I look forward to going back. After 3 weeks, doing Boston, NYC, and D.C. back to back has made me a bit of a professional tourist, but unfortunately my travels might slow down a little in July. My next confirmed destination is Atlanta (home for the Peachtree Road Race), and the week after that, some coworkers and I are planning a ridiculous 3 day getaway to destination TBA (right now Amsterdam, Aruba, and Las Vegas are all contenders).

Week 3: New York

Strawberry Fields - Central Park

Orpheum Theater in East Village

Times Square

The Vampire Weekend at Central Park

I spent Friday-Sunday of last week in New York City. The trip was a blast, but the entire weekend served as a pretty clear indicator that I am definitely not street savvy enough to live in a big city. I flew out of the Vineyard on Friday morning, and upon landing in LaGuardia (one of the NYC airports) I made my way down to the ground transportation level only to be left completely perplexed by the elaborate bus/subway system map. After staring blankly at the map for a few minutes, a woman approached me to ask if I'd like a ride into the city. I must have looked pretty pathetic. This woman was one of two other passengers that flew out of the Vineyard with me on my flight, so I figured it was just as safe to hitch a ride with her as it was to take my chances on the NY metro. As we approached her car, I took note of the fact that she was traveling with a chauffeur. Turns out, this woman is Meg Ryan's assistant, and the car in which I'm getting a ride is one of Meg Ryan's cars. Jackpot.

The woman, who by now has introduced herself as Madeline, is a very sweet native of New York who has been working for Meg for the last ten or so years. She and Meg were vacationing at Meg's house on the island before attending a film festival on Nantucket later in the week. When I told her it was my first visit to New York, she gave me all sorts of indispensable information about places to visit, things to see, how to navigate the city, etc. In addition to Madeline's expertise, riding in her private car probably saved me about an hour of commuting time as I had a direct (and swanky) ride into the heart of the city. I told her she could drop me off at wherever she was getting out, which put my final destination in the neighborhood of Soho, one of NY's most eclectic and stylish shopping districts.

At this point I had no clue where Soho was in relation to anything else in the city, so I just started walking (as previously mentioned...not too street smart). After about 15 minutes I ended up in Washington Square Park, more or less on NYU's campus. My phone rings and it's Eric, the friend who is hosting me for the weekend. As dumb luck would have it, Eric had just finished a meeting for work in Soho and was about 5 minutes away from me. This coincidence is unbelievably lucky as Eric is not normally in this part of town. We met up and he took me past his office, where he works as an admissions counselor for the Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts (part of the same school as Parsons ala Project Runway).

We stocked up some vitals (including a box of Oh!s--my favorite cereal that is essentially non-existent in Athens and the Vineyard) and took the metro to Central Park, where two of Eric's friends met us for a picnic. After a few hours we all parted our separate ways and I took the metro into Times Square to buy tickets to an evening performance. I went to TKTS (discount rush Broadway and Off-Broadway tickets) and purchased tickets to see STOMP Off-Broadway. I'm not really into the whole glitter-and-jazz-hands-song-and-dance-show-tune type of Broadway production, so I figured STOMP would be a safer bet. Being the bonehead that I am, I didn't realize that the STOMP theater was way WAY off Broadway (about 45 blocks) until after I'd made the purchase. Oh well, time to start walking.

Fast-forward about an hour and a half and I arrive at the Orpheun Theater, home of STOMP. In transit I was able to walk past the Empire State Building, Grand Central Station, 5th Avenue shops, etc., so the walk was actually pretty entertaining. Once I finally made it to the theater I had about an hour to kill before meeting up with my friend Petra, who is working an internship in New Jersey this summer and agreed to meet me in NYC for the weekend. I planted myself down in a NY pizza parlor with my book and watched passersby until Petra arrived.

The show was definitely worth the trip. If you ever have a chance to see STOMP live, I'd wholeheartedly recommend it. It was one of the best live performances (if not the best) that I've ever seen. Total riot. We had a ton of fun.

For more information on the show: http://www.stomponline.com/

When the show ended we called Eric to figure out the best place to meet up, and as luck would have it (again), he was already in East Village, about 10 minutes from where the show was held. We met Eric and his friends at Union Square for about an hour before calling a wrap on day 1.

Day 2: After feasting on a delicious breakfast compliments of Casa de Eric, Petra and I set out for the Rockefeller Center with the intention of touring NBC studios. The Rockefeller Center itself is awesome, but the NBC studios were packed so we opted to save the tour for another day. A few weeks ago I made reservations to see a live taping of Late Night with Conan O'Brien (awesome!) along with another four other NYC shows, so I'll have plenty of opportunities to see the studios some other time. After perusing a few stores on 5th Avenue, Petra and I both wanted to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, so we took a nice walk through Central Park and spent most of the afternoon in the museum. If you haven't been to the Met, it is (in my lowly opinion) the best feature of NYC. It is absolutely enormous and the collections are incredible. My personal favorites were the 16th-18 century European paintings, the Egyptian gallery, the Greek/Roman collection, and the Pop Art gallery. I could have spent an entire day in the Met and still not have seen everything.

Upon leaving the Met, weather took a turn for the worse, and by worse, I mean torrential downpour. Given that Georgia has been in a drought for over a year, I haven't seen a rainstorm like this one in a really REALLY long time. Petra and I were planning on seeing a free concert in Central Park in the afternoon, but the rain was so horrendous that we assumed it was cancelled and went to get [more] pizza instead. After the rain cleared up, we walked back toward 72nd street to see if the concert was going on, and sure enough, it was. The band headlining was "The Vampire Weekend", a New York band of whom I'd never heard, but Petra was a pretty big fan and after seeing them live I can understand why. The concert was great, and such a fun way to be able to enjoy Central Park.

More info on the band: http://www.myspace.com/vampireweekend

However, the thunderstorm came back in a big way and we were forced to leave the concert before floods ensued and Noah's Ark arrived. Between the cross-city traverses and multiple monsoons, Petra and I were both exhausted and elected for a nice, quiet evening at Eric's apartment in front of Monsters Inc. and charades. Yes, we're wild. I know.

The next day I flew out on the 12:30 flight back to the Vineyard and I've picked up where I left off. Marshalling planes, rerouting passengers, filling out load manifests, the usual. I'm not sure where my next destination will be. Things are starting to pick up here at work and we're a little short staffed, so it might be a month before I can go adventuring again, but I have every hopeful intention of ending up back in Atlanta for the Peachtree Roadrace and Washington D.C. before the end of July.

Thanks again Eric for your wonderful hospitality this weekend and I can't wait to have you up to the island!

Week 2: Boston

Annenberg (Harvard campus)

Sam Adams Brewery Tour

Red Sox vs. Devil Rays

I just accidentally closed out this webpage and lost all of the blog entry I had been so carefully crafting, so I'm going to settle for the abridged version of week 2.

Tim and I took our two days off and made a trip to Boston this week. We bought tickets to Wednesday's Red Sox game and arranged to stay at the apartment of a fellow UGA grad. We got into Boston around 10:00AM on Wednesday and spent the morning "touring" Harvard. It was our original intention to sneak into a class to sit in on a lecture, but as it turns out Harvard is a hot spot for tourism so the campus is kept under lock-and-key to keep less intelligent miscreants like us from absorbing any of their privileged knowledge. We went 0 for 4 on successfully cracking the security blocks of various buildings, including the library, but were finally able to sneak into Robinson Hall, which, as luck would have it, is home to the Department of History. Unfortunately that's about when our luck ran out because Harvard was in its intersession, so no classes were being held. Should have tried MIT. I swear that story was funnier the first time I wrote this.

Next on the itinerary was locating the future home of our friend Sara, who is moving up to Boston in the fall to take a job with Google. After a 30 minute trek through rainy Boston suburbia/pit-stop at Taco Bell (with the exception of one pathetic Dairy Queen there are no fast-food restaurants on MV so we indulged at every available opportunity while we were in Boston), we were able to find her place and figured the best way to celebrate was by taking a tour of the nearby Sam Adams Brewery.

The brewery is nestled in a little neighborhood on the south end of the city. We made it just in time for the last tour of the day. The tour did not require reservations, was free of admission, and provided us with complimentary samples of their products. Needless to say, the self-promotion worked and I have a new-found appreciation for Sam Adams. The history/expansion of the company and brew-making process are very interesting. I had a nice little blurb in my journal that discussed some of the finer points, but since I'm having to retype this entire entry, I'm instead going to direct you to a website that has done all of the work for me:

http://www.samueladams.com/samsite/company.html

Additionally, the brewery provided us with postcards that they mail free of charge, so Mom and Dad and VC, you should be getting a postcard shortly.

After the tour ended, it was time to make our way to famed Fenway ballpark for the Red Sox game. Fenway definitely lives up to its reputation. Rather than drone on and on about how fun the game was, I'll post pictures later. Boston certainly loves its baseball team. And basketball team too, obviously. It was pretty cool to be in the city right in the middle of the Celtics hype. The city was decked out in green "Beat L.A." shirts and they even started a "Go Celts" chant in the middle of the baseball game. The game was without a doubt the highlight of my trip to Boston and I am already entertaining the idea of flying into some other major cities to watch their teams play.

With that being said, no team can or will replace my stalwart devotion to the Atlanta Braves.

We stayed the night at Sarah Cherry's apartment, which was 15 minutes walking from Fenway. Sarah and her husband were so nice to accommodate us on such short notice and it was great to stay in a home of a fellow Dawg. The next morning we had plans to walk the Freedom Trail and check out some of the more historic sights of the city, but after about an hour and a half of walking around, we decided we were exhausted and had seen everything that we needed to see, so we caught an earlier flight back home.

As my travel bug condition worsens, I already have my next two trips mapped out for the next two weeks. Some of my coworkers made a game-time decision to take a weekend trip to Bermuda yesterday, so they jumped on a plane at 7AM this morning to reach a connecting flight in Boston. I'm haven't come up with anything quite that ridiculous yet, but I've got all summer to cook something up.

Well I guess this entry wasn't as abridged as I thought it would be.