Come'on 'N Ride The Train

I had a shift of plans for New Year's Eve 2009; I had originally planned to stay in Lebanon and party it up down there, but on a whim, I decided to buy a train ticket from Charlottesville to Union Station in Washington D.C. My best friend Kerr from UVa lives there (actually, she lives on the Maryland-side of DC, but I still consider it DC), and another great friend of mine from UVa Danno lives in NoVa, so I thought it would be a great time to see everybody while we didn't all have to work. I brought in the New Year with Kerr and other friends at Danno's house in NoVa, then went to Kerry's house with her on New Year's day. On Saturday we decided to hit up some Smithsonian museums on the Mall, so we went to the National Museum of American History and the National Gallery of Art. Highlights included seeing Julia Child's kitchen, my first encounter with Claude Monet original paintings and my personal favorite, the original ruby red slippers used in The Wizard of Oz.

Kerr and I metro-ing into the city!

This is Martha Washington's inaugural ball gown. How do they preserve these things?

Julia's Cambridge, MA kitchen.

In the display kitchen, there were all the books that she authored and co-authored...I actually wonder if she had all of her own cookbooks on a bookshelf in her kitchen. If I had written a bunch of books, I don't think I'd have them on display in my house, but then again, I haven't accomplished anything of the sort, so I'm not judging Julia.

Okay, here they are...number one reason why I wanted to go to the National Museum of American History. When I was a little girl, I was obsessed with The Wizard of Oz, and when we'd be at the grocery store and people would ask me what my name was, I would just smile at them and say, "Dorothy!" I love love loved the ruby red slippers and had a semi-replica pair that were only good for leaving scuffs all over the kitchen linoleum. I actually read L. Frank Baum's book The Wizard of Oz over my last college Christmas break and the slippers in the book are silver, which was a disappointment. And for those of you who think the happenings in the movie are pretty out there, the book is even crazier!

"Sunday, Monday, Happy Days, Tuesday, Wednesday, Happy Days!..." I was pleasantly surprised to find that the American History Museum has The Fonz's leather jacket! It's the little things in life that bring me joy. "Eyyy!"

I'm going to preface comments about what I'm getting ready to write with, I really don't like the Muppets...at all (If you're reading this and you do, move right along to the next photo please.). I thought it was a little ridiculous that they have Kermit sitting in a plexiglass encasement when they could have had something much cooler like Michael Jordan's basketball jersey or some Elvis sunglasses. But no, they felt the need to put Kermit the frog on exhibition. Stupid frog. Okay, I'll stop venting now. Next!

I've never really considered myself a person who's really "into art." I don't get amped about going into art museums, but Kerr and I really love paintings from the Impressionism era, so we made a beeline to the French paintings portion of the museum. It was my first time seeing an original Claude Monet painting. You know when movies depict one or more of their characters having epiphanies while standing in front of some weird painting, and it looks all emotional and life-changing? Well, I know what the movies are trying to impart. I love this painting; I think the movement in it is exquisite--I love how the wind is depicted in art, whether it be in literature, paintings, songs, etc. I felt like a fool standing in front of the Madame Monet and her son because I used to say things like, "I don't really like art," or, "I'm not really into art." And then I felt like an even bigger idiot for taking a picture of it for this here blog. But this digital moment captured below marks a very pivotal moment for me with regard to my art appreciation. The good thing is that I didn't use flash--preserve art!

Danno, Kerr, Me and Jesco catching a Metro after meeting for dinner.

Danno had told me about his sweet Cole Haan shoes, which were really awesome. However, on the Metro ride to Kerr's house, I noticed that he was rocking Nike socks with them, which I'm going to go ahead and call a fashion faux pas. Hi, my name is R. and I'm the Shoe-Sock Coordination Police.

Kerr and I decided to visit another college friend, JohnJohn, who lives on the VA side of D.C. Kerr got a new GPS for Christmas, so we just typed in the address and it told Kerr where to go. You have to be careful with GPSs, though, because sometimes the shortest distance is not always the best route...It took us through the middle of D.C...and back...but we finally made it to JohnJohn's house. This is a little bit of what our trip looked like...a total blur:

I really enjoyed the train ride to D.C. because I didn't have to stress about where to park my car the whole weekend, and plus, it was something new for me. I'd never taken a trip via train before last weekend, so I'd say it was a success. Another notch on my travel savvy belt. I'm not even going to try to tackle New Year's resolutions on this post...another day, my friends, another day.