“We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner!”
– Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit

The flight to DC was late. Even worse, I got to the airport an hour earlier than usual, so I ended up reading the first two chapters of the Hobbit in the airport lounge, thinking I would definitely be late for dinner.

I started my first day in DC randomly walking around. There isn’t much to be seen in White House, with its layered securities and fences. I was even fortunate enough to get a decent photo of its front view. Memorials, on the other hand, are accessible, and they are all massive. With their classical orders and spacious gardens, architectures of this sort would be dedicated to gods or heavens in other cultures, but here they commemorate humans. Lincoln Memorial is the most impressive of all.

Museums are plenty, and most of them are free. They are where I spent most of my time. The National Portrait museum is full of good quotes (in addition to good pictures of course). One particular line has sticks to my mind since: “Art is a birth, and you can’t go to a teacher and find out how to be born… you have to struggle until that image, the one that comes out of your need to create, emerges. — Malcah Zeldis”

Georgetown has much more lively streets with more vibrant colors. I guess because it is during the school break, the most crowded place is a cupcake shop!

It’s winter, and it’s school break. With the congress still in session for the budget talks, the general mood of DC was sober and tense. They all made visiting a cemetery more bearable than usual. A good place for reflection isn’t it?