Dc sightseeing…

I did a lot of walking today and saw a great deal of things...I started at Union station and made my way to the White House, yeah I totally got to hang out with Obama, just kidding. I also walked to Jefferson Memorial, Washington Monument and the Pentagon along with the Pentagon Memorial. This was a really pretty memorial right next to the pentagon building. There are the names of all those affected by the attack. One in particular stood out to me, it was a husbands name, and below was the names of his children and wife that he left behind...and next to it was another other one with the mother's name and below it, the children her and her  husband left behind.

Pentagon Memorial, VA (it's in Virginia)

I also went to the Arlington Cemetery (where J.F Kennedy and Jackie O are buried.) It's kind of scary to see the rows and rows of head stones, that you know represent death, tragedy and sadness. Knowing that you will one day be reduced to that...kind of sucks.

JFK and Jackie O's burial sight

I visited the Holocaust museum which takes you around Germany through the eyes of a young Jewish boy called Daniel with the help of my diary he penned while in the ghetto and in a concentration camp. It was a familiar story told in such a unique way as the museum is molded around what Daniel survived through.

Holocaust Museum, DC

After a lovely day and dinner I headed back to the hostel ready to get some sleep, but my roommates had other ideas so 2am was my bedtime, luckily I was catching a 5 hour bus ride the next day, so I was planning on catching up my sleep then, unfortunately my bus mates had other ideas...ugh! Is anyone seeing a pattern?! I have now decided that if you ringtone or your voice is seriously annoying you are ban from sitting in a 10 chair radius of me. The guy in front of me spoke for a solid 5 hours! Surely your battery should die at some stage?

Outside Arlington Cemetery, VA 

Getting lost…is not uncommon…

Finally in Dc I do what I always do in a new city...find tourist maps. Then I manage to negotiate the Metro system (which can be tricky for first time users.) Only to arrive at Union Station, great :) So I ask information looking guy for directions to H street and 5th Street as I thought this may be faster than welding my way around the map, I'm in luck as he knows what I am talking about! Until I realize he doesn't but only after walking 1 mile in the wrong direction (with my TSA friendly luggage) which means 1 mile back to where I started when I realized H street has a NE and NW part of it and each has its own 5th Street :/ DC, I consider that an epic fail by the way!

Union Station, DC

Heading the right direction I find myself signing the A,B,C's to try work out how many blacks from D to H...and yes, I had to start and A every time! I managed to find the hostel 2 hours after leaving the airport. I made a pretty quick turn around and headed out armed with a new and improved map (Russ the manager of the hostel pink Hi-lighted everything I needed to know in order to make it back alive. Which I did, thankfully.

Even though like an idiot I had left my cell phone in Milwaukee and was armed with an itouch (or as I fondly refer to it as *the itouchy thing*) with no internet which makes it essentially an ipod, video player or an expensive paper weight, but thank goodness for Mc Donalds and their free wi-fi I got to let everyone know I was safe, as well as arrange a dinner date at Nando's with Amy (a former Milwaukee au pair who re-matched to Maryland)

Amy and I outside Nando's, DC

*Hi-lighted words are explained in the glossary page

Getting to know the TSA officers…well…

Waking up early is not my strong point...I think we have firmly established that by now, so we are not going to beat a dead horse on that one. However my lack of directions may need to be revisited...once I finally get to DC.

The White House

So early flight, bags are packed, security should be easy until...I get pulled over cos

A. not all my liquids are in one clear plastic bag but rather in two

B. my sweater was on top of 'my' (actually my friend Nina's) laptop, which makes the image fuzzy and

C. cos my bag caused the machine to go off

These three things mean that I …

A. get to watch a TSA officer go through my luggage *underwear included*

B. get to try re-pack said luggage while listening to safety rules

C. discover that my make-up bag set off the machine *so now it needs to be swabbed* and

D. get a friendly pat down (up, down, sideways, down) from a friendly TSA officer...

Jefferson Memorial

Robyn Wiggill is…in a relationship…

Yip, that is my new Facebook relationship status and all my friends are now doing the *booty dance* (that’s very similar to the happy dance.) Tyler asked me out tonight and that means this adventure is about to get even more exciting! Starting with DC, tomorrow…

Yup, that's us

Warming NOT burning…

Tyler has now moved in with his best friend Andy and the guys decided to have a house warming celebration. The night started off well with Karabo, Nina, Tyler, Andy, Brittney (Andy’s girlfriend), Dan (aka Schaefer) and Nate gathered over drinks and snacks. Later on one of Brittney’s acquaintances joined the party…she was slightly strange to say the least. After drinking way to much we decided to set her up with a couch to sleep on so she could ‘sleep it off’. Luckily Brittney lives in the apartment above, so we had some space for her.

Celebrating with the girls

The party quietened down at about 2am, and everyone found some bed, couch or floor to inhabit. Karabo and Jeremy ventured outside when they were meet by an elderly lady who informed them there was smoke coming from the 3rd floor. After much confusion and a little panic we realized apartment 28 on the 3^rd floor was Brittney’s house! So Karabo, Brittney and I ran up to her place, barged through the door and were met by a smoke filled room (yes, we were silly enough to just open the door without knowing what was behind it.) My first reaction is to find the drunk girl, so I’m calling orders of open the windows, doors, stay low and cover your mouth! It is amazing what you remember and what you forget in situations like these. After searching the apartment we realized she had disappeared, left her shoes and made a very stupid mistake! She had tried to cook noodles in a hot pot (which is electric) which she put on the stove, without any water and the cord had caught fire! And for some strange reason there were Cheerios on the floor…

This made me laugh (google image)

Whodunnit?!

My next post is about a Murder Mystery evening…well two of them actually. Tyler and I attended a small gathering that his cousin had put together. I become “Numbers” the shy accountant while Tyler became the second man to the mafia don. After a ‘murder’ and a night of detective work we came to the conclusion that we had NO IDEA who had killed the mafia don, but it was eventually revealed that Tyler was the murder *shock and horror!* The messed up thing is since it was arranged by Tyler’s cousin, some of the people there were related, so the full story line is Tyler killed his cousin because he was jealous of him, and he had also been having an affair with his girlfriend (who happened to be his sister). Hmmm…

Tyler and I at the Murder Mystery Dinner

The second murder mystery dinner was significantly less intimate as there were big tables of 8 people and there was only one character per table so we had a more relaxed dinner experience. I felt more like a spectator then a participant. This story line was centered around a wedding where the best man is murdered. Turns out the bride and best man were having an affair…and the groom was the murderer.

At the second Murder Mystery Dinner

My opinion counts…

I was recently asked to attend a pizza tasting…free food, heck yes! It was at the same place where I did the pizza tour (Palermo’s.) I love their pizza and the tasting was really fun too. We got to sample 4 pieces of pizza, comparing two and two. We had a paper that looked like a multiple choice quiz…comparing cheese amount, colour and taste as well as the pizza base’s crispiness, colour and thickness and lastly toppings. It was a fun evening and it made me realize how much thought goes into the process and how much is involved in developing and manufacturing “box meals.”

Pizza Place