Sunday, 27 February 2011

Gettysburg

This weekend, we headed up north into Pennsylvania, to see Gettysburg. The surrounding National Park is the site of the Battle of Gettysburg in the American civil war, from 1863. The town itself, pictured below, has a nice center around an old square, and a museum focussed on the Gettysburg Address, given months later at the town by Abraham Lincoln. Its a very famous (and short) speech, and its words are inscribed on the Lincoln Memorial in DC.
After seeing the town, we headed to the site of the museum, and the National Cemetery (the site of which is where Lincoln made his address at its founding). The museum at the National Park is very good, with well presented information on the civil wars history and the battle itself.

The site of the battle is huge; we walked around a small part of it, where one of the last parts of the battle took place. It had a rather surreal feel, mainly due to the assorted tributes, plinths and statues detailing the site of each of the different regiments in the battle. Each monument had its own theme and style, adding to a disconcerting effect as you look at them lined up.

Here is Sarah by one of the monuments:


Adding to the surreal nature of the visit, they have an abandoned visitor center right by one of the main strips of battlefield, which is slowly doing whatever 50's era concrete buildings do when left alone.

Today, back home - we're enjoying the weather slowly warming up. I was able to sit outside and have a snack on our porch for the first time this afternoon. Hopefully, the weather will not dash us with snow like it did last time it warmed up.

Monday, 21 February 2011

Park to Damascus

This weekend, we went on a walk through one of our local parks in Damascus, a neighboring town. Sarah enjoyed the start of the walk, was was saddened after loosing multiple games of Pooh Sticks.
Also, our old friends the beavers (combined with recent heavy snow-fall, and strong winds) had also been at work:

We tried to rescue the bridge below, but the previous nights winds had finished it off:

Hopefully, this is the last big storm of the year before the summer comes.

Sunday, 13 February 2011

The Sub-Sub Basement at the Sackler Gallery

This week, we visited the sub-sub basement of the Sackler gallery in DC. We visited this by accident whilst looking around the neighboring Freer gallery, and exploring a long corridor in its basement. The museums of the Smithsonian (or at least some of them) are linked by corridors, but we didn't realize you could walk between them so easily.
Oddly enough, at the base of the second sub basement, we found a fountain, which Sarah is posing in front of here:

We considered exploring the National African Art Museum too (also via a tunnel), but had to head back to pick up our coats, and get some lunch.

It was a nice day on the Mall, and we had a look at some of the modern art:


We also paid a visit to the Spy Museum, which was fun but had an odd combination of lots to read, but few actual details. Some of the things on display were fun though, and hinted at some of the craziness of the cold war (like the radio listening posts hiding as tree stumps, rocks or turds). What was most interesting was learning that the CIA/KGB tried copying a number of Bond gadgets after the movies came out.

Monday, 7 February 2011

Games Room: A trip to Ikea

This weekend, in an effort to fill up some of the empty rooms in our house, we headed to the place people go for quick furniture: Sweden. Luckily, this is only 45 minutes away around the Beltway.
Here is Sarah and I with some Swedish meatballs:

On arriving home, we unpacked some of the boxes, and Sarah magically turned them into two chairs:
These chairs, and a TV stand, have turned our loft into a serviceable games room. The one issue, however, is that this adds to our growing pile of boxes in the basement:
I feel this is a problem for later...