Day 6/7: Weekend!!!

My first weekend in D.C. was a success!!

Yesterday (Saturday) I decided to just have a relaxing day after I spent all day Thursday and Friday sight seeing!  I slept in (which I haven't done since....winter break!), then I walked to this little cafe for lunch.  After I ate I went back to the apartment and relaxed for a little bit.  Then I decided to go to Union Station, it is still a bus/metro station, but there are a lot of stores and restaurants.  I had to take TWO metros to get there!  But I made it :)  I walked around a little bit and it was a pretty good time.  Last night I watched 3 movies!  Hahahah it was great fun :)


Today I headed back to the National Mall/Smithsonian area.  I started the day by going to the Air & Space Museum, and it was awesome!  Half the time (okay more than half...) I had no idea what I was looking at, but hey, everything looked pretty neat!!  I also decided to see an IMAX movie while I was there.  There were a lot to choose from but I chose "The Dream is Alive."  This movie was shot by 14 NASA astronauts on three shuttle missions.  It included footage of launches and landings, satellite captures and repairs, space walks and an inside look at the astronauts living in space.  It was really cool!  It was fun to see how the astronauts lived in space...it showed footage of the men shaving upside down and some of the astronauts eating...their food was just floating in the air!!  I also like the footage of them sleeping...they were in these sleeping bag looking things attached to the wall...but the funny part was all their arms were straight up in the air! hahaha.  I also really liked all the different views of Earth they showed, it was super interesting!  I also saw some other neat things, here are some pictures!

Viking 3:  While Viking 1 and 2 were on Mars, this vehicle was used on Earth to stimulate their behavior and test their responses to radio commands. 

MISSILES! 

Hubble Space Telescope!! 

Actual Apollo Lunar Module 

I'm not exactly sure what this is, but there were a lot of
buttons, so it looked official!

Actual airplane built and flown by the Wright brothers in
1903!

One of Amelia Earhart's planes!

Mars Exploration Rover

Airplanes!

I was a little disappointed in the planets section that they didn't even mention Pluto!!  Back in my day Pluto WAS a planet!!  Rude.  I also got glow in the dark nail polish....needless to say, I'm VERY excited about it!!  So that was the Air and Space Museum....it's too bad my Dad wasn't with me :(  He would've LOVED this!  Actually, I'm pretty sure it would've taken him AT LEAST 4 full days to get through the entire museum, he loves this stuff.  And 4 days is not an exaggeration (he likes to read everything! LOVE YOU DAD!! :) )  

I saw 2 leash kids today!

After the Air & Space Museum I started walking towards the Capitol building.  I found a big pond and sat there for a little bit and got some good pictures :)

It was a really pretty view and it was a gorgeous day so I really enjoyed just hanging out by the Capitol!!  

Next to the pond was the United States Botanical Garden so I decided to check that out.  It was BEAUTIFUL!!  There were so many flowers and plants and it smelled so good!!  I was a little disappointed when I walked in the Hawaii section...there were NO flowers!!  Now, I have been to Hawaii and they have lots of flowers!!  But anyway, I really enjoyed the garden, especially all the orchids!!  Here are some of my favorite pictures (and don't ask me what the flowers/plants are...I have NO idea...but they looked neat!!)

Yayyy for pretty flowers!!!  To see all the beautiful flowers I saw check my Facebook!! :)


And finally, to end the day I went up as close as they would let me to the Capitol building.  I got some really good pictures and it was such a nice day that I sat in the lawn area for about an hour!!  (The grass wasn't mowed very well, my father would've been quite disappointed!!)  

After that I headed back to the apartment and now I'm just watching some tv and uploading pictures!!


Oh, and I got the dates mixed up.  I actually work tomorrow and I have Tuesday off because of the German holiday.  I'm absolutely fine with that!  Tuesday it is supposed to be like 80 degrees and sunny so I'm thinking about going to the zoo!!  Hopefully rain stays out of the forecast!!


Hope everyone had a great weekend and for any Wartburg students/faculty reading this, enjoy your first day of May Term class tomorrow!!  More tomorrow :)


Shelby*