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Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Exploring

One of the best parts of living in a new city is exploring. There's the necessary exploring like finding the local grocery store, bank, and Target. Then there's the fun exploring; finding your favorite quiet spot, the best running trail, the tastiest breakfast spot, and most interesting sight to take visitors to. I did the necessary exploring before my trip to China, now that I'm back home it's time for the fun exploring.

This past weekend I spent some time at the National Mall. I visited the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, the Natural History Museum and some of the monuments. On the one hand it was weird to be back amongst tourists again but on the other hand it was fabulous to experience what DC has to offer. Although there are some new exhibits, the majority of what I saw in the Air and Space Museum was the same as the last time I visited, in elementary school. What I found really interesting was the people watching. Here are a few things I overheard:

  • Elementary school aged girl to her mother, "Did Teddy Roosevelt create the teddy bear?"

  • Father to five year old son, "Charlie, what's your favorite missile?" Charlie's response, "Orange."

  • 3 year old boy pushing buttons on exhibit to display different airplanes exlaims, "Airplanes! Airplanes!" Then turns to his left, faces his mother, and deadpans, "I pooped."

Next weekend I am going to go on a hike or run. Not sure where, but you can be sure that I'll let you know how it goes.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Teddy Roosavelt did invent the teddy bear! Well, sort of. He was on a hunting excursion and killed a bear. Turns out she had a cub. TR kept the men from killing the bear and gave it to a local zoo (I think). In any case, some clever fellow made a stuffed bear and named it Teddy. It was a phenomenon, and thus we have the teddy bear.