Well, where should I begin? Let me first apologize for not blogging last night. Let’s just say there was a surprise event on the 3rd floor of our hotel — I’ll get to that in a minute. Friday started out with the last of our seminar sessions at the UDC. While I have enjoyed them a great deal, it is a sigh of relief to know the inauguration is right around the corner. After the morning sessions were over, our whole group traveled to the Smithsonian Museum of American History and had lunch together in the cafeteria. I was restricted to soup and crackers, as I was still feeling nauseous.
I had never visited that particular Smithsonian museum and found the Lincoln exhibit, which opened that day, absolutely fascinating. I also really enjoyed the exhibit on First Ladies, which included many evening gowns they have worn. I somehow missed the 9/11 exhibit, but made up for that on Saturday with our trip to the Newseum.
Before I get to the Newseum, let me explain why I’m just getting to Friday’s blog tonight. One of my roommates and I opted not to go out to dinner and stay in to order some room service. We were watching “Wife Swap” and relaxing when I suddenly heard the sound of running water. I went into the bathroom to see if one of us had left the water on, but instead found the toilet overflowing. It was after an extremely brief phone call to the front desk that the water began to really get moving. We barely had enough time to move all of our stuff off the floor before the water had spread to the far side of our room. After quite a bit of freaking out, we finally got moved to and settled in a new room.
I think I can vouch for my other roommates and say that we all slept pretty well Friday night. As for Saturday, we started out at the Newseum in the morning. I initially visited the museum shortly after it opened in the spring of 2008 while I was still living in D.C. While the bulk of the exhibits were the same, the “President’s Dogs” exhibit was new and a big hit. It was cool seeing photos of many presidents interacting with their dogs. Aside from that particular exhibit, I am still quite partial to the 9/11 exhibit, particularly the section dedicated to a photojournalist who was killed while covering the attacks.
We then had another group lunch at the museum and split up into smaller groups. A bunch of us headed into the Chinatown area and ran across one of the official inaugural stores. To say that the store was packed would be an understatement. I purchased quite a few political buttons for my Dad and myself. We then headed to one of my favorite stores, which is unfortunately not in the Buffalo area, H&M. After a successful afternoon of shopping, we stopped into a nearby restaurant, Cosi, to plan our next move.
We headed back to the hotel and picked up all of our dry cleaning — clothes which were wet from the previous night’s incidents (on the hotel), and relaxed a bit before heading down the street to Ruby Tuesday’s. The waitress pulled some strings and was able to get me some mac n cheese, which was not on the menu. It felt really great to have an actual meal and have it settle well.
I’m realizing I’m probably forgetting quite a bit to update everybody on, but I’m pretty beat. Tomorrow is going to be absolutely crazy. The “We are One” concert is being held in front of the Lincoln Memorial and is expecting a crowd nearly the size of the actual swearing-in of the inauguration. Warning: You will probably read several posts of Bona students freaking out about seeing musical acts such as Usher, Beyonce, Josh Groban and Bruce Springsteen. More to follow tomorrow night as we all prepare for Tuesday.
