I officially do not miss winters!

Hey everyone! J and I got home yesterday from visiting friends in Virginia. I can I definitely do not miss the winter season. Yesterday was nice and I was able to not have my jacket on between the restaurant and the car. Friday was better than Thursday, which was in the 30's and very very windy. J was laughing at me because I was cold, but he had to put a hat on!

We had a very good time. My friends live about 30 miles from downtown DC, so they dropped us off at the metro station Thursday and Friday so we could go play tourist. Thursday we went to the Natural History Museum and the Air and Space Musuem. The Air and Space also had some of the items from the American History Musuem since that building is under renovation. J also got to see the outside of the Library of Congress, plus the lobby area. We got there 15 minutes after they closed, but I can tell you the lobby area is beautiful!

Friday we walked from the metro station to the Washinton Monument, around the Reflecting pool to the Lincoln Memorial and then back up to the Holocast Museum. We did A LOT of walking those two days! The Holocaust Musuem was the one I wanted to do since it wasn't there when I did the class trip in 8th grade. J calls it depressing, which in a way it is. But it's also very poignant and heartbreaking. The biggest issue I had was there was too much reading, a problem when there are a bunch of people moving through an area. The pictures all had small plaques describing what they were and the only way those could be read was up close. Other than that, the museum was amazingly well done. It's one of the quietest I've ever been in. People didn't feel right speaking in normal tones, so there were a lot of whispers and hushed tones. Most people had rubber soled shoes on and it was very jarring when a couple went through and they were not in rubber soles shoes.

The museum has a lot of actual articles from the victims of the camps, several uniforms and personal objects. There were even actual pieces from some of the ghettos and camps, cobblestones from Warsaw and bunks from Auschwitz just to name a couple. But what really got me was seeing the shoes. People entering the camps had to give up their shoes and one of the displays was just shoe upon shoe upon shoe. It was also heartbreaking to read and hear about how the different countries first responded to the rising problem.

Ok, I'm going to stop depressing everyone. We did have a very good time and are very thankful to our friends for letting us crash on their guest bed. We got an amazing cost for air up to DC, $129 round trip, so going back again won't break the bank! Hopefully we'll have a much better landing the next time we head up there. For once the approach was so bumpy that my stomach felt rocky. And when we landed, we were tilted to the right, the left side tires were not on the ground at the same time as the right. But we made it safely and had a very good short vacation! And pictures can be seen at Photobucket.