Oh, DC....

A couple of days ago (July 1st - July 5th), a group of four of us (yes, there are four of us in this picture), traveled from Worcester, MA to Washington DC. We left late on Thursday night so that we would have the entire day on Friday to sight-see around the area. While it was a great idea to travel through the night in that we did have the extra day, I think we all underestimated how tired we would be the next day from not sleeping at all or sleeping in small cat naps. Though we were able to take a three hour nap at Betty's Bed and Breakfast (what Mara's mom likes to call her house) prior to hitting the sights, the day was slow and consisted of a lot of moseying around and checking out the "structural soundness" of different monuments - as seen below.


Later that night, Gladman and Nate headed back to Betty's B&B for crab cakes with Mara's family and a chance to play ladder golf while Bernard and I headed off to the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in order to watch "Mary Poppins" (a birthday present for me). We ate dinner at Watergate, which is really just a place we picked because it was located right behind the Kennedy Center. I think that the best part of the dinner came at the end when Bernard was trying to pay and there were several mix-ups with the waiter, bill, and whether or not Bernard had actually paid. (Don't worry, he did!:) I actually had to go to the bathroom at one point because I was laughing so hard about it.
After dinner, we headed over to "Mary Poppins", which was Bernard's "first play in English". (Evidently he's seen one other one in Russian.) Though Bernard had a hard time getting over the fact that you can't take pictures in the actual theater, once the play actually started, we both really enjoyed it. Both of us thought that the most impressive parts were the different stage "special effects" that they had including Mary Poppins ascending from the stage to the second floor of the building and Bert climbing the theater walls while singing. Needless to say, it was a great show and the perfect birthday present!
Bernard and I took the metro back to Betty's B&B that night, which was yet another funny experience as we both had no idea what we were doing regarding buying tickets and figuring out what platform to stand on, etc. It was quite obvious that we were the "country folk" who had come to the "big city" for a day of traveling. Mara and Char picked us up from our metro stop (they had driven in from Raleigh that night) and completed our journey by returning us all to Betty's B&B.
On Saturday, all six of us spent some more time sight-seeing, visiting different museums (The National Building Museum, the Air and Space Museum, and the National Museum of Natural History), and we ended the night by stumbling upon a rehearsal right in front of the Capital Building for the big Fourth of July concert that would be held on Sunday.


Sunday consisted of going to Capital Hill Baptist Church in DC and then heading from there for some more exploring in DC. On this day, we went to the Holocaust Memorial Museum and attended the fireworks in the Mall Area. (We were literally sitting about 200 feet away from the Washington Monument when the fireworks went off.) I think that this was my favorite day because we were generally well-rested and the Holocaust Museum was really interesting as well as thought-provoking. Though we had 1 1/2 hours at the museum, I only made it through one exhibit about Nazi propaganda and how it enabled Hitler to achieve power and the support of the German people as quickly as he did. Over dinner, Char brought up some her thoughts from the time in the museum, and evidently a guy named Andrew was listening to us respond to her. Andrew quickly joined the conversation, and through our discussion, we were able to talk with him about Christ and how we need Him for any kind of lasting heart change. The supper discussion with Andrew went for about an hour, and he ended up coming with us to the fireworks display. I just loved how God caused that whole conversation to unfold in a very natural way and that we got an opportunity to converse about Christ with someone who is not His follower.
As we all watched the fireworks go off over our heads, I couldn't help but be thankful. I think that this is the first year that I distinctly remember feeling ridiculously grateful that I live in the country that I do, God sustaining it even though we are capable of such evil (remember the genocide we just had reviewed in the Holocaust Memorial Museum), and the fact that God has given me the ability to know Him personally. So, DC, filled with all kinds of monuments and people was such a good reminder for me that while this world is not our lasting home, our lives touch others and we will all leave some sort of memorial. What kind of memorial am I currently leaving?