Arlington to Annapolis

After the dome tour on thursday the rest of the activities kind-of pale in comparison. However Saturday dawned bright and warm and when you don't have to work that's all that really matters. To take in the wonderful weather I got out of the house at the crack of noon and headed to Arlington National Cemetery. On the way I stopped by the Pentagon, visiting the 9/11 memorial. The memorial is interesting... As you can kinda see from the pictures there are metal "fins" that rise out of the gravel, the top of the fins have a red marble and water flows under them. The pentagon doesn't seem as big/impressive as you would anticipate. Well it wasn't as impressive as I anticipated, especially when I came up from the metro right next to it. The Pentagon is right next to Arlington Cemetery, the nearest gate into the cemetery however, is no where near the pentagon. This meant that after walking to the cemetery from the pentagon I walked back to the pentagon, got on the metro and metro'd down to the visitors gate.

Walking through the gate at Arlington takes you into another world. In Washington it is virtually impossible to find peace and quite in public. Even though there are other people around, walking into Arlington takes you into a quiet sanctuary. The first thing I really noticed was the lack of noise, I felt bad scuffing my shoes on the gravel because even that noise was out of place. The walk through the cemetery takes you past many historical grave-sites, Kennedy's tomb, the Arlington house, and eventually the tomb of the unknown soldier. The "unknown soldier" was eventually identified, the tomb today serves as a memorial to all those soldiers who have been killed and never identified. The tomb is guarded and I arrived just as the guard was changing. This was the third time I have witnessed the changing of the guard, it was still a very sobering experience. Moving isn't the right description, but it definitely stirs something in your inner patriot.

There are not as many photo's below as there probably should be. This is for two reasons. The first is that the cemetery is so rich in detail that pictures can't really do it justice. The second is because of a slight oversight on my part....when you go exploring...charge your camera.



Sunday was even sunnier and warmer than Saturday. Through a big run I took in the mall, and the Jefferson memorial. Cousin Denny and his wife Mellisa live in Annapolis. They had been in Pennsylvania at Mellisa's folk's house for a baby shower, as Mellisa is very pregnant with twins. Aunt Jenny, Uncle Dennis (Denny's folks) and Cousin Bridget (Denny's sister) had flown in for the baby shower. On their way back they picked me up and I rode to Annapolis with them for quasi-home cooked Indian food at Denny and Mellisa's. On top of the Indian food, Uncle Dennis had found a brewery in PA and purchased a couple growlers of really good micro-brew beer. It went great with the curry.

On the beer note: I have been spoiled! Oregon has more micro-breweries per-capita than Germany. So unbeknown to me not the rest of the US serves 10 kinds of good beer at every bar. I am finding that if you want anything darker than a lager its going to be Guinness at most places, and a lot of places can't even do that. I'm not complaining...too much. I am just seeking out those bars that understand that beer comes in more flavors than lightly flavored water.

I failed to mention that Saturday evening our 4th roommate returned from Africa. He had been on safari and climbed Kilimanjaro, then he spent the rest of the month touring around Tanzania. I had been sleeping in his room in his absence but now that he returned I have moved to a futon in the dinning room (at severely reduced rent might I add). We are still figuring out the transition. Fortunately we are only transitioning sleeping arrangements and not a whole country...not sure how Obama is attempting to do it.

The senate today (Monday) passed a cloture vote on the stimulus. Passing cloture means that they have to vote on the actual bill in 30 hours from the time cloture passed. There has been huge uproar about this stimulus, both for and against (in our office mainly against). But to put it in perspective- The Marshall plan was the plan the US used to re-build Europe after WWII. When you adjust the cost of rebuilding Europe under the Marshall plan for today's dollars, the stimulus is 10 times more money, and it is twice the size of FDR's New Deal (adjusted for inflation)!!! Personally I try not to be to partisan on here but....isn't that a little ridiculous?! They're estimating the stimulus will be $800,000,000,000 BEFORE INTEREST. Yay for spending!