taking on dc and nyc: part one

The past week could be more or less accurately summed up by the words desserts, pizza, art and Planet Earth. But let's face it - I'll probably get in all sorts of trouble if I leave things at that. So behold: a RATHER LONG description of the last wonderful and exhausting seven days.

First, a little background knowledge. I was originally supposed to take a bus down to DC last Saturday, spend a couple hours with Ashley and meet up with Nick after his flight arrived that afternoon. As it happened, Nick's flight out of Madison was canceled, rescheduled/rerouted through Minneapolis and he ended up getting into DC at 10pm. Thus, I spent most of Saturday with AJ, which was awesome! We were able to enjoy lunch (a lot of yummy, garlicky lunch) at the restaurant where she works, see a couple exhibits at the National Gallery, watch Enchanted (which I giggled and gasped at the entire time, just like a 7-year-old) while eating massive amounts of Easter candy and have a drink at a Russian vodka house - all before Nick got back into town. Basically an amazing vacation in itself!

Nick finally arrived and we settled in at his parents' house. I got to meet his family for the first time, which was great. One night Nick and I made dinner for them - we're quite the cooking/baking team. In Brooklyn, we baked macadamia nut cookies; Nick must've eaten at least a dozen within a day or two.

Our main destinations in DC were the National Gallery and Newseum (again!). At the National Gallery, we spent most of our time looking at modern art and walking through the Sculpture Garden.

There was a really neat LED light installation above a moving walkway in the gallery's concourse, which I'd heard about from Leland. I walked it three times in 24 hours.

Here's a photo by Nick (he took most of these photos) of the East Wing. This was taken shortly before we encouraged a girl to do a cartwheel in one of the museum's giant elevators.

A work by Lichtenstein in the Sculpture Garden. It rained basically the entire time we were in DC, but we were unfazed.

We also watched HOURS of Planet Earth, the most beautifully shot nature series everrrr. On Tuesday afternoon, we took the Bolt Bus to New York: my first chance to entertain a visitor in my new home!

More later...