LibraryLobsterArtMilkshake
One of the best things about the apt in Mt. Vernon is that it is close to Penn Station and thus it's dead easy to take the train to DC.
DC has many things. Most relevant to my professional life is the Library of Congress and someone who is better at my job would have been going there at every opportunity for the past two years. Procrastinator Me, in contrast, does nothing about it for 22 months and then, with mere weeks left before E moves out of the neighborhood, decides it's time to acquaint self with the LoC. Fail. But better late than never, or whatever.
You have to get your reader's pass in the Madison building, but it's the Jefferson building that's the real eyecatcher.
Finished in 1897, it is a monument to The Gilded Age (or whatever it's called) and contains enough symbolic hoohaw to melt the brains of any Dan Brown-loving National Treasure audience. Outside:
Inside:
It's pretty effing cool.
Each of the cherubs represent a different vocation or activity and their overlord cherubs represent the 4 populated continents:
Asia and Europe
America and Africa
Embedded in all the symbolism are little fortune cookie droppings of wisdom:
I was so busy looking at the building that I didn't do any actual work there. Also, I only got a temporary reader's pass because they had run out of official reader's cards (tough times for the LofC!).
I'm ashamed to say it but the allure of primary documents wasn't really what compelled me to DC after 2 years of having the LoC on my todo list. It was the
food trucks.
DC friend Ileana knows things about food trucks. Where to find them, what to eat at them, how to get free stuff from them. The Library of Congress was awesome and all but feast your eye-tastebuds on this:
One lobster roll (Maine style), a blueberry soda, a bag of Cape Cod chips, and one free Whoopie pie (IMS played the she-just-arrived-here-from-Canada card like a pro) courtesy of the
Red Hook Lobster Pound food truck.
It. Was. Amazing. I'd never had a lobster roll before and as I recall the experience, my eyes begin to water. You'll probably want to click on the pic for a closer view of the roll.
Ileana is not only a food truck aficionado, she is an event planner. Filled with lobster goodness, we went about town viewing priceless modern art and love-hating gift shops. Here is a pic of me in the sculpture garden of the
Hirshhorn museum, amidst my new funny-panted friends.
I have a pair of pants that are wayyyy too big for me that I like to wear on days when I want to wear big pants and I feel like these sculptures look. The art struck a chord with me.
THEN we went to
Good Stuff and I had a Toasted Marshmallow Milkshake. Yes, you read that correctly. It is easily the best milkshake I've ever had. I wished the toasted marshmallows they included with my shake had been a little more toasted but the shake itself was like the most awesome vanilla shake you can imagine. Not too sweet, not too vanilla-y, just absolutely perfect. I didn't take a pic of mine but here's one I found online:
The train on the way back from DC got stuck in a tunnel for about an hour and a half but it didn't matter, it was still a great day.
It's pretty effing cool. 
Um, LOC ogling and lobster roll eating does indeed sound like the best day ever. I will now continue to drink my green tea with jasmine and finish off my high fiber cereal. Sounds like we'll have similar days, eh?
ReplyDeleteAlso? I totally clicked to see a larger version of the lobster roll. Damn!
ReplyDeleteIt's all so very Whiggish. And why are there balls on your shake?
ReplyDeleteGross.
ReplyDelete