Click here to check out the rest of my pictures from my trip! (Hint: click on the pictures in the slideshow to see details.) My second day included a Capitol tour, visiting the Library of Congress where I got a library card (supposedly for “research purposes only and NOT to be used as souvenirs…I figure I might come back and do research, right?), viewing the Supreme Court building, botanical gardens, a whirlwind tour of the Holocaust Museum, and a final visit to the Washington Monument. I did all that in four hours, and then my feet wanted to kill me.

I’m visiting my good friend Ellen in Washington, D.C. this weekend. I’m a little jet setter lately! I’m ready to be settled in at home again, but it won’t happen next week. But anyway, we’ll get to that at a later date. Day one of my visit, Friday, was spent with Ellen at work, and then lounging at her apartment eating cookies, talking, and watching Scrubs. Day two involved sleeping in, watching more Scrubs, going to a wedding, and hauling out to Annapolis to see Over the Rhine in concert, which was, by the way, amazing. Day three (today) we went to church and then walked the heck out of DC. What we saw: Smithsonian Air & Space Museum, National…
Continue Reading »

Today is the anniversary of the destruction of Pompeii by Mt. Vesuvius. Pompeii has always held a fascination for me. I think it’s the combination of its age, the remnants of daily life that it preserved, and its uniqueness. When I went to Greece it was the Acropolis that had me transfixed. In Russia, the Tolstoy House Museum was my favorite tourist site. Pompeii is a combination of the aspects that each of these offered. Most of what scholars know of daily life in ancient Roman culture comes from Pompeii. It was a thriving city at the time, and most people probably didn’t even know that Mt. Vesuvius was a volcano. It was also five miles away, so they probably…
Continue Reading »