Are you the sweeper or the thrower?

Here's my recap from my trip to Washington!



Nothing like the Metro. This is the Gallery Place/Chinatown Metro. I've never seen an entry tunnel decorated like the Chinatown one!



Every time I got to Washington, I try to peep some different museums. I end up at the National Gallery of Art a lot--I always want to see the exhibits--but this time around I swore to do something different, so I went to the National Portrait Gallery, which is absolutely amazing. I can't believe I've never been there! This is a portrait of George S. Patton, the Cardigan family's patron general.



There's a permanent collection of portraits of every single president, including some sculptures, like this one of George H. W. Bush playing horseshoes. I thought it was really cool looking.



Here's the Mall. When I left the hotel on Friday it was drizzly, but by the time I came out of the National Portrait Gallery it was beautiful and sunny and warm with a nice breeze. A perfect fall day. I also went to the Library of Congress, but I didn't take any pictures. Too busy fussing at the classification system.



Here's the ice at the club that hosted our bonspiel. Awesome, isn't it? I had my first taste of curling at this club waaaaaaay back in 2006, just after the winter Olympics; my friends and I drove up for an open house at the club and the line was out the door and around the building! I didn't get to play but that trip planted the seed. And then I got to come back and play three games, which was amazing! We lost them all by sizable margins--unsurprising since we were playing people with 40 years of experience each while our team's total experience was about 4 years--but we scored in all our games, and I had a fantastic time playing. Even if I was exhausted.



This guy's name is Jimmy Fallon. No, really. His team's name was Late Entry with Jimmy Fallon, and they had matching shirts that looked like the Late Night logo. It was hilarious! This is the second Jimmy Fallon I've met. And I am enamoured with his pants. I even found them online, and the same people who made Jimmy Fallon's pants made the Norwegian men's curling team pants that went viral in 2010! I need these pants. Or some similar variety of insane curling pants. Technically they're golf pants, but who cares?



PRETZELS. I met some college friends for dinner and we drank beer (well, two of us did) and ate pretzels (well, three of us did) and partied hard (no, none of us did). So much laughing.



Meet Barney. He's the pony I rode all the time in college, and every time I'm in Virginia I have to stop and see him. I plan to adopt him after he ages out of the college program. It might never happen since Barney's a great therapeutic riding horse, but if he ever needs a home, it'll be with me :)



I stayed with my college pal E. Sunday night. We watched football and braided each other's hair and ate cookies. Well, two of those things are true. She made these amazeballs pumpkin spice cookies and LIGHTBULB, why not make a batch and give some to the people who wrote me letters of recommendation for grad school? (I submitted my app on Wednesday.) So I made some today and they were a huge hit. I may have had to swat my dad away more than once to protect the stash.

All in all, a really good trip. Not long enough, of course, and not enough pictures to demonstrate how many times I was at Wawa (at least 7), but still a great time! Back tomorrow with outfit photos.