National Gallery of Art

Last weekend I visited the National Gallery of Art. Below is one of my favorite pieces. I was amazed at the large collection of works they had on display there. You'll find everything from gold coins to relatively recent paintings by Edward Hopper. I was very impressed by the architecture and overall peaceful aura of the building. The only downside to the gallery is that while all of the Smithsonian Museums are open until 7:30pm during the summer, this building still closes at 5:00pm every day.

Georgetown Cupcake

Word has it that if you go to Georgetown, you have to go to Georgetown Cupcake. As you can tell from the photo below, this isn't your typical grocery store bakery cupcake. Each succulent ball of chocolate goodness is about $3.00. Now, it's good, but not necessarily three dollars good. But I'll let you decide. They've got a pretty spiffy website. Check it out.

www.georgetowncupcake.com

Sculpture Garden Pool

This week we got a spot on the edge of the pool at the jazz concert...and well...I couldn't resist. This was just a few minutes before we got caught in a crazy hurricane storm. I wish I could have gotten a photo of our little group soaked from head to foot, standing in the puddles of Pennsylvania Avenue, but alas the camera probably would have been fried by the rain if I'd taken in out of the bag. Oh well...

Jazz on the Mall

Every Friday night from 5 to 8:30pm jazz bands play at the Sculpture Gardens just north of the National Gallery of Art. By seven the place is loaded to capacity with hundreds of dunk white collar DCians, getting a head start on the weekend. Most visitors still sport neck ties and skirts. The drink of choice is Sangria, which is bought in pitchers and looks a lot like raspberry lemonade. Last week's group played Brazilian jazz. This week was blues. Good stuff. In the middle of the garden is a large pool. If you're lucky enough to get a spot on the rim you can stick your feet in the cool refreshing water with everyone else. Not exactly hygienic, but quite relaxing.

Guess Who

Only 68 degrees?... Maybe I should go check into the emergency room. I found this camera while wandering around the Air and Space Museum on the mall last week. Fascinating place, probably my favorite museum so far, but it's well, only the second one I've visited. Nevertheless, they've got everything you want to see. Don't miss John Glenn's spacesuit, nuclear missiles, Apollo spaceships, paper airplane contests, IMAX theaters and even Buddhist monks eating McDonald's.

Go Green!

Last week I took a stroll through Eastern Market. Every weekend street vendors gather to sell everything from golf balls to gourmet pickles. It's six glorious blocks of flea market paradise. They've got everything you need and everything you don't. As you might expect, I didn't buy anything, but I did do a lot of people watching; the shoppers are just as varied as the shops. Knowing that you walked all the way from one end to the other without succumbing to impulse buying is quite a satisfying feeling. I recommend you try it. At the end of the line of tents is a cafe with an outdoor patio where you can put up your feet and listen to a local jazz band.

Cheers to all those pickle lovers out there!

Clue - DC Style

Why is there a shopping cart in my elevator lobby? Should I put up some police tape?

Five-Sided Pictures

So...apparently you're not supposed to take photos of the Pentagon outside of the designated areas. Yes. This is a designated area, well...the designated area. Just behind this fence (behind the camera) is a memorial set up for the people that died on 9/11 when the airplane struck the Pentagon. Only here can you can take pictures. I tried to take a couple photos in the parking lot just outside of the memorial and got royally reprimanded by a security officer. The portion of the building in this photo is where the plane crashed. You can distinguish the new portions by the slightly lighter-colored stone.

I was surprised at how close the metro stop is to the building. It seems to run right under the structure. For this reason it took us ten to fifteen minutes once reaching ground level to figure out that we were in fact looking at the Pentagon. When standing in front of it, the building is big enough that you can't see that it has five sides. I noticed that one can see the five-sided shape better at Arlington Cemetary than on the ground, but it is too far away for the camera to get a good picture.

Wings Anybody?

The Hawk and Dove is a bar. It looks like a bar. It sounds like a bar. It smells like a bar. But, on Mondays between 4pm and 8pm, this bar serves 12 barbecue wings for a dollar when you buy a drink. This includes beer, soda or juice. This does not include water. I asked. The waitress declined. So essentially I went in thinking I was going to get wings for a dollar and somehow got charged $5.25 for orange juice and 12 mini drumsticks. How does that happen?

I think that was actually my first encounter attempting to eat wings. "Attempting" is the most important word in that phrase. Their isn't much meat on there to begin with and about 25% of it you can't get off the bone without filling your nasal cavity with barbecue sauce. Lovely.

So...let's just say I paid $1 for the wings and $4.25 for the experience of going to a bar in DC with 25 other Hinckley interns. I'm happy with that.