Tuesday, May 29, 2012 - DC and Philadelphia
Tuesday, we left DC. BUT FIRST!
We drove into the city for breakfast on Tuesday morning. On the way in we saw: the Watergate hotel! hahaha. We considered going over there (we even looked into staying there one night because of my obsession with all things Nixon), but it is mostly apartments these days. So we decided it wasn't worth going by except to snap a picture of the hotel on our way in. Here it is, from the car:
We were trying to go to the Eastern Market to get a special kind of pancakes - blueberry buckwheat pancakes, or "blue bucks," which they are known for - but it was closed on Tuesday for some reason. Instead, we had overpriced French toast at a little cafe nearby. The food was pretty good, but it was too much money for the amount we got. However, the weather and the setting were absolutely idyllic. We were at a small table outside the restaurant, watching people walk by, a few blocks from the capitol building, in the shade, probably 85 degrees. It was to die for. Check out those cool cheeseboards we got to eat on.
Jon showed me his apartment from when he was a missionary here. It was across the street from the Eastern Market, which must have been great. Then, we went to the American History Museum. That was a lot of fun. This is me with Nancy Reagan's Jedi robes she wore for the inaugural ball (or something). We took a picture of me with it because, if I were ever First Lady, I would also consider bringing Jedi robes back into style. How awesome, to trick the general public into running with a crazy style just because you knew they'd take whatever you gave. haha.
Here is Jonny looking at the presidential timeline:
Aaaaand, I got to see Nixon stuff. (And I got another Watergate book, on clearance for $6 at the gift shop ... this one is an auto/biography of Mark Felt [Deep Throat] compiled by his attorney and taken from his own memoirs - this is a big deal because Felt was planning to keep his Deep Throat identity a secret until after his death because of potential implications, but his family convinced him to come out about it when he was in his 90's because they felt that he deserved the praise that would surely come with it after 30 years. So it's actually Mark Felt writing about Mark Felt instead of always someone else writing about him.)
That second picture is THE file cabinet that got damaged by the Cubans who broke into Watergate. (They broke into Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office. Daniel Ellsberg is the guy who leaked the Pentagon Papers and they were trying to find incriminating information on him.) The whole thing is like a super famous and emotionally charged true crime story, really. Oh, and that third picture reminds me - Nixon's grand jury testimony was just made public a few months ago - I wonder if they will add it to the display? they should. Anyway, here:
Another super cool thing from this museum: the Nauvoo sunstone :) Rad. It is cool to read about our church history in places like textbooks and museums.
Then we hopped in the rental car and headed off to Philly, where we spent the night. Oh, and on our way out of town ...
We also passed some signs for Gallaudet University (the main - only? - Deaf university in the country), but didn't have time to go. I think next time I am in DC, I'd like to take an ASL tour of the campus. Hopefully, by then I will be more fluent.
On the way to Philadelphia, we stopped at the Susquehanna River. Jon has this cool thing he wants to do for our nieces and nephews when they get baptized - he brought back a jug of water from the Jordan River when he went to Jerusalem, and we got a jug of Susquehanna River water from here. He's going to fill three little vials of water as a gift for their baptisms - one from each of those bodies of water (symbolizing Christ's baptism and Joseph Smith's baptism/the restoration of the authority to baptize today) and one from their own baptismal font. I think it's a really beautiful idea. It took some running around to find a place where the river was accessible from the road, but we got it taken care of fairly quickly (and with minimal trespassing).
We got to Philadelphia around 7:45pm, dropped off the rental car, and met up with Ahmad (the director of Church public affairs for the NYC office, aka my internship director) and his wife, Jayne. First, he took us to see the site for the new Philadelphia temple. He's been instrumental in that whole process, and it was fun to hear about some of the process, how the site will be organized, and how it will fit in with the city's plan for that whole area of Philly. It's going to be really great. Then he took us on a driving tour of a lot of historic sites in downtown Philadelphia, which made Jon and I wish we had budged more time for the city. Also, it was raining pretty hard, so that was too bad. But we saw a giant clothespin, the Liberty Bell, Betsy Ross' house, and some other cool things.
After that, they took us to dinner at Friendly's (the food was delicious). We heard lots of fun dignitary stories from Ahmad (and saw pictures of him or his family with various familiar faces, incl Condoleeza Rice, David Archuleta, and various General Authorities and UN ambassadors). He always has the best stories. Then, they took us back to their house, where we stayed the night. Also I washed our swimsuits by hand and had a slight freakout moment where I couldn't get the soap out ... til I realized they had soft water in their house, so it was just the SENSATION of soap... not that there was actually still soap. It was really fun to meet Jayne and to catch up with them both.
Another very busy but really great day :)