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As I entered Malcolm X Park this Sunday afternoon I saw the sign above and was inspired to look for pics of the color red in the park today.
Here is the result...
Just hover your cursor on it to make it dance and click on any pic and it will take you to the set on my flickr photostream.
I think this annual kite festival on the Mall is most fun when it is sunny, warm, and windy. Today it was cold, wet, and just a little blustery. But still fun.
We bussed down 16th to check out the Festival. It was my first time, I think. Along the way we stopped in Lafayette Park - across from the White House. We had to take this snap by the Kosciuszko statue.
He was a great Polish General who helped out during the Revolutionary War. A foundation to celebrate his legacy also helped pay my way through grad school - since I am of Polish heritage. Yeah!
Despite the gloomy weather, the blooms definitely make DC feel like springtime. Here are a few of my favorites from today - some cherry blossoms and some others - Suz & Tut are still debating if they are Magnolias or Dogwoods...
...If your soul has no Sunday, it becomes an orphan.” That is from Albert Schweitzer.
My soul was not an orphan today.
Spring in Washington is amazing and today was a beautiful spring Sunday.
Jean, Ma and I started with mass at St. Patrick's - the oldest church in the federal city of Washington (i.e. outside Georgetown).
The church was built in the late 1700s for Irish immigrants who were in DC creating the new U.S. Capital City - so we felt close to our roots.
It was a perfect day for a walk, so Jean and I took an afternoon walk to Adams Morgan for some furniture shopping. Along the way we passed through a Latino food market - organized by country...
...and some kinda crime going down (in front of Suz & Grant's house).
As I love to do, we ended the weekend by relaxing and enjoying the diversity of Columbia Heights at the drum circle in Malcolm X Park...
I am passing through the second biggest city in the US for just 44 hours.
I won't even leave my hotel and the conference hotel here at the airport - LAX. Not so interesting. Well - I do have a business dinner in Marina Delray tomorrow night. That could be fun.
I really do like this city and wish I was staying longer.
It happened in 1934. And we are still enjoying it today.
This morning Jean and I went to the Smithsonian American Art Museum to see for ourselves. The exhibit there - A New Deal for Artists - focuses on paintings created in 1934 with the support of federal funding.
At the time, banks were failing, families were wiped out, unemployment was at 25%. Sound familiar? But the Roosevelt economic stimulus plan included big money for artists. This exhibit shows some of the results.
One of the very cool parts of this exhibit is if you took the time to read about the artists - you would have seen that many of them were immigrants - born in Germany, Russia, Sweden, etc. - but painting their view of their America for Uncle Sam. Art from the melting pot.
This exhibit was pretty timely and thought-provoking for me. I have been questioning the stimulative effect of today's stimulus plan - including funding for the National Endowment for the Arts. I still don't know where I stand on that- but I do know I like the art from 1934 - and the Federal program that supported it.
I have been wanting a dog for some time now.
But even though I work from home when I am in DC, I travel too much to give a dog the attention it needs.
So I lucked out when my good friends across the hall got this dog - Bradley. He is part beagle and part terrier and I have access to him whenever I need some good puppy time.
The perfect quote for this weekend in DC by one of my favorite authors - Charles Dickens.
We took advantage of the warm sun and cool breezes by taking in some of Washington's nature in some of my favorite spots.
The pic above is of Mammie & Tut in Rock Creek Park on our Saturday walk.
The pics below are from Sunday in Malcolm X Park. There is a lot going on in the park on Sundays. Drumming. Dancing. Dogs. Acrobats. And much, much more...
Apparently so. There is a new ranking of cities out that lists the most "manly" cities in the US. Washington is #45 out of 50. Ouch.
It seems the measures were things like number of Nascar fans, concentration of sports bars, monster truck rallies per capita, number of hunters, etc. Those are all "manly" things.
Not so manly things in a city include, for example, an abundance of home furnishing stores, high minivan sales and large subscription rates to beauty magazines. Guilty.
I heard a report on this on NPR this afternoon. One DC local suggested these variables sound more redneck than manly.
Here is the list...
1. Nashville, Tenn.
2. Charlotte, N.C.
3. Oklahoma City, Okla.
4. Cincinnati, Ohio
5. Denver, Colo.
6. St. Louis, Mo.
7. Columbus, Ohio
8. Kansas City, Mo.
9. Indianapolis, Ind.
10. Toledo, Ohio
11. Memphis, Tenn.
12. Richmond, Va.
13. Columbia, S.C.
14. Orlando, Fla.
15. Dayton, Ohio
16. Salt Lake City, Utah
17. Milwaukee, Wis.
18. Minneapolis, Minn.
19. Cleveland, Ohio
20. Detroit, Mich.
21. Jacksonville, Fla.
22. Phoenix, Ariz.
23. Birmingham, Ala.
24. Grand Rapids, Mich.
25. Tampa, Fla.
26. Harrisburg, Pa.
27. New Orleans, La.
28. Las Vegas, Nev.
29. Pittsburgh, Pa.
30. Philadelphia, Pa.
31. Louisville, Ky.
32. Atlanta, Ga.
33. Providence, R.I.
34. Dallas, Texas
35. Buffalo, N.Y.
36. Rochester, N.Y.
37. Baltimore, Md.
38. Boston, Mass.
39. Houston, Texas
40. Seattle, Wash.
41. Sacramento, Calif.
42. Miami, Fla.
43. San Diego, Calif.
44. Oakland, Calif.
45. Washington, District of Columbia
46. Chicago, Ill.
47. Portland, Ore.
48. San Francisco, Calif.
49. Los Angeles, Calif.
50. New York, N.Y.
I am back in Washington, DC from a wonderful, packed trip. Here is my list In no particular order. Do them all when visiting Mexico City. Simultaneously whenever possible.
1. Eat. Often and with a cervesa or margherita. Eat at restaurants. At cantinas. Off the streets. Well from street vendors. As Michael warned me, real Mexican food is so much better than Lauriol Plaza on 18th street. So eat. But really, don’t drink the water. Nuff said.
2. Explore the neighborhoods. The variety is incredible and Jean and I experienced only a few. My favorite this trip was, by far, Coyoacan – but I didn’t get to San Angel or Polanco or many others.
3. Get religion. As I had expected and hoped, there are churches on every corner. Big, small, old, new, over-the-top, simple. Something for everyone. The Metropolitan Cathedral was amazing. I didn’t get to visit Guadalupe. I think my favorites were two small churches on their own squares - Santa Catarina and Plaza de la Conchita - both in Coyoacan.
4. Go back to school. For Anthropology. The civilizations that sprouted from this area and crossed and mixed and came from other places are fascinating. I remember learning about Mesoamerica in school. I wish I had paid more attention. The National Museum of Anthropology is one of the best I have ever been too - and I have been to many. You can learn about the civilizations there and then see, walk around and climb on their legacies at Templo Mayor and the Pyramids of Teotihuacan.
5. Discover nature. Wherever you can. There are big parks and small squares and tree-lined avenues. Just enough flora and fauna to take a bit of the edge off this densely packed city of more than 22 million. There are flowers everywhere. A nice reminder that spring is coming - even to cold DC. Here are a few...
Teotihuacan. That's where it happens and that is what the word means. That's also where I climbed many steep steps to come just a bit closer to them.
Jean and I saved a visit to this ancient city, in the pic above, for our last full day here in Mexico City. It was worth the wait. It is amazing to me that this city of 125,000 people was built nearly 2000 years ago - as old as Christianity.
The main attraction here are the two Pyramids - Pyramid of the Moon and Pyramid of the Sun. You can climb them.
I am not a huge fan of heights - especially when I can feel wind moving around me. I get dizzy, my heart races. I had to concentrate, literally, on each of the narrow steps as we climbed not one, but two pyramids.
First we climbed the taller one - the Pyramid of the Sun. Here I am before the climb.
Here is a view as you are looking up during the climb. Very steep. I tried not to look up much.
Here I am after the first third of the climb.
And here we are at the top - with the Pyramid of the Moon in the background. You can see me clinging on to Jean as the wind is about to blow me off the top.
After the Sun - we moved on to the Moon. You can't go to the top of that one, but it was still unsettling, for me, but also beautiful.
But scaling the pyramids was not the only adventure today. To get there we had to take 3 subway lines and a bus more than an hour out into the countryside.
The bus ride was great. It was packed. Standing room only. But at every stop someone would get one to sell stuff. Candy. Music. Baked goods.
This guy got on and serenaded us. Very fun. Check out the video...
