DC Trip – June 15, 2009

We started the day with getting me registered for the conference. Oh yeah, I keep forgetting I'm supposed to be doing conference stuff. I got my badge and such and took a couple of photos since CorpseKitten wanted to pose with Joe Biden and President Obama's stand-up cardboard cutouts. I'll photoshop them down later so they look more real. Why isn't anyone posing with Hillary in the background. Weird.


Then we picked up Babo and took a walk to the National Archives. The line was too long and it was out in the sun, so we decided to go to Plan B and head to the National Gallery. We checked out the west wing first which is the older stuff. I’ve been here before, but it’s still cool to see some of those pieces again. And so you know, for having so many Rodin pieces, there sure was a lack of Godzilla and Mothra portraits. We walked through the underground passage to the East wing where the modern pieces are at. We chanted our own irreverent version of U.S.A. is #1 (for having underground passages for those who hate the sun like we do) while staying nice and cool. We saw a couple things in the East Building, but were starting to get worn out on the paintings.

We walked past the Smithsonian main building castle and then to the Sackler to see Japanese demon scrolls. There’s an ancient Japanese myth about an ogre-demon who gets tricked and killed. The story is told by numerous people and recorded in various scrolls on display. It’s really slick. In the entrance to the Sackler, there's a cool mirror wall where it distorts your image. Here is giant CorpseKitten.

Then to the Freer gallery. The Freer is filled with Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Indian art pieces and also a lot of Whistler pieces. There was also a room taken out of a building in London and reassembled in the Freer – it’s called the Peacock room. The room was specifically designed to house like 100 blue and white vases, bowls, and plates in a latticework of asian-inspired shelves. Kind of cool, but not as cool as the Sackler. But it did have an underground passage (cue more U.S.A. chanting).

We walked to the Washington Monument took a photo or two


and then to the white house. Saw the presidential helicopter land and then take off again (not sure if the president was in it on either trip. They block off the sidewalk in front of the white house when that happens,
but then they opened the gates so we could take photos.


We had a late lunch/early dinner at Old Ebbitt Grill, directly across the street from the Treasury building.We started with two appetizers. Colombian Empenadas and Beef Carnitas. Both of these were really fantastic. We were glad we couldn’t decide and got both.

Then I got a thai fried chicken salad. This was a good salad. Not fantastic, but still really good. Great sesame-soy peanut based dressing on it though.

We walked back to the hotel to change and catch bus to the Embassy of Zambia for an awards ceremony and free drinks. Babo wasn’t feeling well, so he camped out in front of the tv to nap and watch the US soccer team get their asses handed to them by Italy. There was a huge line waiting for busses to the embassy. Apparently the conference expected between 50 and 100, not 500-600. So we made it on bus number 7 and arrived as they were shutting down drink stations. CorpseKitten ran through the embassy to the back yard where the drinks were and commandeered a variety of beverages for us. We met some new friends and got to hang with FireRetarded and DeltaForceCommander some more.

FireRetarded and I were disappointed with the lack of zebras and giraffes at the embassy, so we took a photo which I will soon photoshop a giraffe into. (give me a couple days, geeesh)

FireRetarded decided we should walk to the next party – a dessert reception at the Decatur House – rather than take the bus with everyone else. He convinced us it was a mere three blocks. We walked from the embassy down embassy row and took photos with us on various embassy grounds so we could say we visited those countries.

In Mexico!
In Latvia!
DeltaForceCommander went to Burkina Faso!
CorpseKitten went to the Ivory Coast before we saw the huge Do Not Enter sign!

Our new friends played along nicely, though we did end up stopping like 10 times along the way. After we had walked about 15 blocks, taken a “circulator” bus another mile and then finished the trek by walking 4 more blocks, we arrived. We were all sweating profusely and were sore.

It was really late by the time we got there, so we grabbed a table in the back and grabbed a couple glasses of wine. FireRetarded also snuck a couple plates of desserts for our group. We took a quick tour of the Decatur House and then hopped on a bus to go back to the convention center before going to the final party of the night at the Spy Museum.

The bus stopped at one point and let a handful of people off the bus at a random stop that was close to another party at the Spy Museum. I ran for the door but the rest of my group got stopped by the driver. So I walked with another group of people I knew and started eating and drinking without them. I had some snacks including rice crispy treats with frootloops in them and some fruit and a couple glasses of wine. Eventually, CorpseKitten showed up with FireRetarded, DeltaForceCommander and our new friends. They were giving away hate to those who danced on the dancefloor, so I was the only without a hat (thankfully).

People started bailing on us, so a group of us went upstairs to laugh at the librarians dancing to the live band. Hilarious. The few of us that were left ended up going to a random bar that one of the people knew. I think it was on U avenue. I honestly have no idea at all. Might have been called mervin’s or something, but I have no idea truly. The night ended there after much falling down and drinking of water.

Top 5 things about Day 3
1. Got to visit like 10 different countries
2. Free drinks the whole day
3. Old Ebbitt Pub
4. Sackler’s demon-myth (or is it?) scrolls
5. You can seriously put anything into rice crispy treats and it’s good. That’s it – I’m making spam crispy treats!

Bottom 5 things
1. Gerd would have punched FireRetarded in the spleen, directly through his eye, for making her walk that far and she LOVED FireRetarded
2. Significant lack of zebras and giraffes at the Zambian Embassy
3. Bus fiasco getting to the Embassy
4. Babysitting drunk people sometimes isn’t fun (sometimes it’s hilarious though!!!)
5. Watching drunk librarians dance is really really really painful, even when inebriated…