On the way to Jazz in the Garden, she and I went wandering, as we are prone to do. We saw this castle on the Smithsonian grounds and wondered what was in it, so we went in! We discovered it was kind of the Smithsonian information center, and it housed Smithson's crypt.
Another detour along the route to the Garden was the Butterfly Garden! This sign says "Where are the Butterflies?"
This was an adorable little path to bike through, with the largest hibiscus I've ever seen!
After touring the Butterfly Garden in which we only spotted one butterfly that we were unsuccessful at capturing on whatever you can say a digital camera captures on, off to the Jazz we went. We rounded the pool quite a few times trying our hardest to find a good strategic spot in the shade, which we eventually did, but funny enough we couldn't really hear the music. But it was excellent for swapping carrots and Sunchips, people-watching observations, and anecdotes about our respective proms and other strange and possibly awkward high school and college experiences.
After deciding to peace out of the Garden, we found ourselves at Starbucks a few minutes too late to go to the last IMAX showing at the Museum of Natural History and came to the consensus that we still were in movie mood, so we headed to Chinatown's Gallery Place. And I was significantly distracted and amused by attempting to read how the Chinese characters phoneticized English business names - Dunkin' Donuts in pinyin is Dangken Duona, and Auntie Anne's turns to Anti An!
We decided to give ourselves the full tour of Chinatown at night with the lights glittering, and discovered some quite amusing things. A highlight for me definitely was that two Buddhist monks thought it was a good idea to ask directions to the bus stop of the two girls acting all touristy with their cameras out to sneakily take a picture not just of the Chinatown welcoming gate, but of the adorable Buddhist monks themselves! Thankfully we played it cool and were able to send them to the correct intersection. 
Lucky enough to learn Starbucks Coffee's Chinese translation in class this spring, I spotted a Xingbake Kafei as well.
Then we attempted a radical new approach to our explorations: board the metrorail in the direction of home, but get off at a stop in between and see what's there. What we learned: 1) Really the only thing open on weekend nights after museums and everything close are places to drink and munch! So many eateries... 2) Apparently when you get pestered by random people on the corner of G and 8th, it's simply because people want you to love the US. But the Navy memorial was beautiful at night, seen here with the fountains. We just happened to be the only ones there.
Boarding at another metro stop, the crowd members on our heels to catch the next train were rejoicing over a wondrous Nationals victory over the Giants. As one rowdy young man shouted something about Strasburg right in my ear, I turned to give him kind of an amused expression and received a factually incorrect shoutout to the crowd: "Hey I think we have ourselves a Giants' fan here!" And I got an "After you, Beautiful" as Tschuna and I attempted to slip into the soon departing metro cabin. The people you meet, the things you see and hear in the city will never cease to surprise me. I'm also not quite sure of how polite to be in a huge city, never mind a city I'm just getting used to. It pains me to walk down the street and not acknowledge other human beings at least with a closed-lipped smile - too impersonal and desensitizing to the power of human connection, but is it too naive? I have yet to figure out that balance, as evidenced by my puzzlement in this dilemma after I received the comment "You've got a cute smile" upon passing a man outside a metro station. Don't worry, we're taking care of ourselves. Approach to acknowledging strangers is to be determined...
The following day included the opportunity to hang out with family I had not seen since I was about twelve, thus a slightly awkward experience simply because I am a little bit shy and weird, but they are super nice people. My mom's cousin and her family made the two hour trek from Virginia just to spend a couple hours in Chinatown with me avoiding only the second real rainstorm I've witnessed in DC (much different than 10-minute freak showers). The Chinese restaurant we ended up at was amazing - too much service and too much food! I kept one ear pasted to conversations amongst the extra personnel and realized they were occurring in Mandarin, Cantonese, and Spanish, one waiter would hardly let us put our glass down from a single sip without pouncing to refill it, and the group menu option allowed us to try different appetizers and 5 different entrees it seemed we did not even make a dent in! So after touring the American Art Museum with them, I was dropped off back at Georgetown with enough Chinese leftovers for a week's worth of lunches as well as a better connection to East Coast family.
Me and my cousin Alex
An incredible sculpture to which I first exclaimed, "Wow, that looks like it is made out of tin foil and cardboard!" only to be told those indeed were the crafting materials and to wonder why and how this made it into the Smithsonian.
Group photo! Uncle Phil and Aunt Kathy, Cousin Alex and her boyfriend Will.
Saturday night lent itself to a TFAS night at the Nationals game: too much good food (common theme in DC?), mediocre baseball (we were ahead 5-3 for a good chunk of the game... but lost 10-5), and entertaining conversations about pretty much everything other than baseball with others in my program. While I realized I had never been to an outdoor baseball game (though I fully cannot wait to go with my guy friends to a game at new Target field), Tschuna's epiphany was that she had never been to a professional sporting event, thus DC introduced her to a new facet in the entertainment industry and the concept that baseball may be boring (her conception) but going to a game is about the atmosphere and the fun with friends.
On Sunday morning after visiting TFAS's fundraising booksale and carwash (the latter for moral support only unfortunately), my friend Bernice and her roommate Lana and I happened upon a most glorious Farmer's Market in Dupont Circle. I managed to resist the temptations of pastries, quiches, and other goodies, but spicy and sweet varieties of sausages that could be plucked so daintily by a toothpick, peach and apricot slices, and about ten varieties of dip ranging from sweet chili to guac to chive from an incredibly knowledgeable Asian nutritionist were worth slightly spoiling a lunch appetite. The unfortunate circumstance for me was that I would have loved to purchase some of the scrumptious fruit strewn about the market in various stalls, but I would not be heading home for a few hours and had no way for refrigeration in the meantime. But while we were there, the samples of course were the best part.
For lunch I had the wonderful opportunity to catch up with my Carleton friend Becca, whom I had not seen since March as she studied abroad in Spain spring trimester! We have the fortunate overlap for about a month, following which is the time frame when we will not overlap again until January following my study abroad program. Over more awesome food, this time our first taste of Lebanese courtesy of Groupon's deal of paying $15 for $30 worth of food (so our bill at the restaurant totaled only $1.65!), we reminisced about Carleton and caught up on life before wandering Dupont Circle and then parting ways at the metro for our separate plans for World Cup final viewing.
I had to keep quite detailed records in order to remember what I had crammed into which day, and many apologies for the long-windedness. Thanks for sticking it out!
Love,
Kathryn
