Baseball. America.Even though we were sad to leave El Salvador earlier than originally planned, one benefit is that we were able to spend Fourth of July in the U.S. — and not just anywhere, but in the Nation’s Capital: Washington, DC.
Presidents’ race.Kail and I started our celebration of America’s birthday with a baseball game: Washington Nationals vs. Chicago Cubs (Nats lost — boo). It was a beautiful summer day thanks to thunderstorms that cleared out the air and brought temperatures down. What’s more American than baseball, hot dogs (or Shake Shack hamburgers, whatever) and big-headed presidents racing each other around the field?
George takes the lead (I was rooting for TJ, duh).
George wins.After the game, we went on a leisurely almost-five-mile walk from Nationals Park up Barracks Row, past my old ‘hood on Capitol Hill and the U.S. Capitol itself, across the National Mall with a quick stop in the National Gallery of Art, and up Pennsylvania Avenue past the White House, finally giving in at Farragut Square and taking the Metro back to our hotel in Rosslyn. A couple times earlier in the week we’d made the three-mile trek from downtown to Rosslyn but my feet just couldn’t handle it this time!
After not walking anywhere in El Salvador it was nice to just walk and walk (and sit) and walk. And make fun of tourists before we took a look at ourselves and realized: Hey, we don’t live here — we are tourists. Also I kept stopping to take pictures of everything. Classic tourist move.
The Willard Hotel, decked out for Independence Day.Despite my waffling about whether we were going to go downtown to watch the fireworks or stake out a spot elsewhere (the Iwo Jima Memorial? Key Bridge?), we ended up not watching them at all. I know. What’s worse: Despite having grown up in Northern Virginia and then living in DC and Arlington for several years before moving to El Salvador, I’ve only made it to the National Mall four — maybe five? — times to see the fireworks. And watched them from other locations maybe two or three times.It was a nice end to my home leave (Kail had a few meetings last week so technically our home leave officially ended June 30, but I didn’t have any official business yet). Now we have a couple weeks of trainings before shipping off to Afghanistan.How was your Fourth of July?
La Vie Overseas 