After a refreshingly late start, we were off to meet Erik at Starbucks in Dupont Circle (well, one of the 3-4 there). After a egg/sausage english muffin and a quad espresso, I was ready for the world! Note to Starbucks - your breakfast sammiches are DELICIOUS and should be rolled out beyond your limited test markets. I KNOW YOU'RE READING THIS, STARBUCKS.
It was a cold, rainy day all day. The umbrellas were out, the puddles were deep, the dampness profound. What a good day to go to the Smithsonian museums! A thought shared by every single tourist in DC today.
First we ran into the big Cherry Blossom festival - sumo wrestlers, singers, dancers, and food stands. Two things here: 1) There were a lot of wet grumpy kids dressed like Dragon Ball Z characters (This is called "cosplay"). 2) I was able to buy a bottle of cold unsweetened green tea, just like I drank in Tokyo last year! It was delicious!
First stop, American History - saw a display of old computers (TRS80, Apple 2, Altair), and Julia Child's Kitchen, and some big trains, First Ladies' dresses, and Ray Charles' yamaha KX88 midi keyboard with braille on the switches.
Then off to Eriks museum of the Native American - a huge, beautiful museum filled with art from the first Americans. Erik showed us a lot of the clever touches, and made his feelings known about some of the exhibit designs... No backstage tour this time, but his running commentary was fantastic.
We had a GREAT lunch in the cafeteria of the Native Museum - it had different food stations for different regions - eastern america, central america, south america... I had some plank roasted salmon, pamela had some brined turkey, erik had some tacos. But the quality was very good - and the sides were nummy. I had fennel and fiddlehead salad!
A quick detour into the Air and Space museum (and a promise that next visit we'd go to the huge new annex out near Dulles), and a breeze through the Herschorn (to see some Japanese guy's photographs... taking art pictures of nature dioramas and wax museum figurines...).
No happy hour today - we met Heidi at Teaism for, well, tea. Also the best oatmeal cookies on the planet. (just had a half of one for breakfast!). It was a relaxing break. Then we had some time to kill before dinner reservations at 9:45.
So we visited Heidi's studio and acquired a few very nice necklaces, and went back to Erik and Heidi's and watched 5 episodes of Arrested Development - man was that a great show!
Dinner was at Indique - a nouvelle Indian restaurant. Great flavors, but some very loud republicans were at the table next to us. And one guy looked like Paul Reiser, and you know about me and him. The feud. But they couldn't ruin a great evening.
To bed by midnight, and up at 8, and we'll be home tonight with the final installment.
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