Now This Is My Kind Of Mall

When we woke up the morning of the second day we found out that we had our Visa Numbers!!!!! We were very excited =] It is one more step in the right direction!

Day 2 in D.C. proved itself to be absolutely gorgeous! It was cool all day, never breaking 75* and the sun was shinning away. Being patient and not seeing all of the monuments on the first day was a good idea, and we saw as many as we could on Day 2. 

First off we went to the Washington monument again. This time we got closer and had an all out photo shoot as we approached and then passed it. I accept your thanks in advance for not subjecting you to all of the shots I felt compelled to take =]

Next we walked right on up to the WWII memorial. This was a newer memorial, and so was new for both Sean and I. I thought it was done really well. It took the time to honor every state and all six territories. It had a Pacific side and an Atlantic side. There were a few good quotes along the walls, as well as beautiful metal artwork showing the different jobs people did during the wars.

While meandering full circle through the memorial we stumbled upon a little treat! They had purposefully inscribed a "Kilroy Was Here" on one of the more obscure part of the memorial. We felt very clever at having found it, and known what it was. It was a private joke we shared with all of the fallen and current military service man.

After we saw the WWII memorial we went on to the Vietnam memorial. I am not sure how I felt about standing in front of a shiny, nondescript, black wall. I was not sure how to comprehend the fact that the names represented people... Thousands of people. I was a bit taken aback and felt sluggish as I walked along the wall. It was easy to detach myself from the wall and its list of names. People were milling about staring at the wall, and a group of people were looking for a name in particular.

 It occurred to me that I was unaware if I had any fallen relatives during this war. I asked Sean to look up if any "Given"s had died and he was able to find two on their online directory. One of them sounded awfully french so I went with the second name. We found the name impressively fast. I am still unsure if there is any relation between myself and this Given.

After the Vietnam memorial we continued our hike up to the Lincoln memorial. Wow. Wow is all I can say. What an impressively big structure with a very large Abraham Lincoln sitting and watching the Mall. I think that this was one of my favorite monuments.

We thought we were headed to FDR's monument after Lincoln's but when we arrived it was not... Instead it was somebody else whose name was John Ericsson (upon further investigation was found to have been known for inventing the steam locomotive. Thank you Libby) We moved on quickly.

The path carried us back around to the Korean memorial which my mother highly recommended. I found that a lot of the memorials/ monuments were created with an air of prestige. The Korean war memorial depicted a group of soldiers who were steadfast but scared, determined and yet resigned. It shows weakness in a very realistic way. I had a high respect for this representation of soldiers, and felt the ability to better empathize with their hardships.

Afterwards we hiked up to the Hirshhorn museum and sculpture garden. I found my chinese zodiac year sign and posed to take a picture with it...

Apparently touching it is not ok, I found this out quickly and in a loud way. But I'm obedient.

We went inside where we found quite the collection of odd exhibits. One of which was just hanging blue tubular things. We weren't entirely sure what to do with it.

So I dove right in! My amusement quickly faded though and we moved on.

Our next stop was the National Air and Space Museum. This is Sean's favorite museum and we had a lot of fun there. We admired nuclear weapons and space craft. We saw the Wright brothers' plane and then went to the planetarium. I can only assume the show was good, I went to sleep instantly. I love looking at the stars but after Day 2 of walking close to a million miles, I was out like a light!

We made it back to Alexandria in time to meet up with a family friend for dinner. We had a delicious seafood feast and slept like rocks. It was a marvelous day!