Mr. Scott goes to Washington - Act One, Scene Two: Once upon a time in the District.

Well, here we are, on a hot and humid Friday afternoon. It's been a day or two of considerable activity so I figured I'd fill you, my loyal reader(s? (Is anyone other than L. Mains reading this?)), in on what's been happening.

Yesterday morning I had arranged to meet Claire at 11 to go and practice our route to the Embassy, and then do a touch of sight-seeing downtown. It took us maybe 20 minutes to get downtown, and the Embassy is only a couple of blocks from the metro stop so it shouldn't be too bad getting in and out of work every day. Of course, we walked the wrong way initially, but soon found our bearings.

Now, for those of you who've never seen it, the Canadian Embassy in Washington D.C. is excessive in almost every sense of the word. It's gigantic and impressive from outside, and includes what I'll refer to as an "echoing gazebo-type chamber," a wall of water, and the inuit statue that appears on the back of the new 20 dollar bill.

After going inside the lobby and chatting with the amicable security guard, we checked out the little art gallery they had downstairs and then made our way across the street to the West building of the National Gallery.

The National Gallery was a really impressive place. They had a myriad of sculptures and paintings and statues. On the second floor is a massive fountain surrounded by gigantic marble columns. The building was actually almost as spectacular as the works it contains, although inside it's absolutely labyrinthine. They had a really cool exhibit on a photographer who specialized in platinum prints (I think that's what they're called), but the highlight for me was seeing Van Gogh's self-portrait. Also, they had a statue of Romulus and Remus suckling the she-wolf, which nobody but Mrs. Marchant will find interesting. I took pictures (no flash, of course) which I'll try to attach below:

After that, we went for lunch and visited Bed, Bath, and Beyond where I picked up some essential housewares. Then we returned home, where Claire presented me with a wonderful magnet that her mom had bought for me (thanks Mrs. Marchant!). It's got a picture of Family Guy's Stewie with his Flintstones phone demanding that they put him through to the Pentagon. Apparently when she saw it at the store it made her think of me. Hmm...

Later, we went to the crappily-organized social event for that evening. It was good, as we met a few people... however, I'll have to work hard to try and remember their names.

Then, today was our official Washington Center Orientation Day. My roommate woke me up at 6am, and I couldn't get back to sleep, so for the first time in my life I was early to pick Claire up, and she answered the door with much hesitation and confusion.

We took the train out to George Mason University in Arlington VA and basically spent some time listening to people talk about our responsibilities and their expectations - essentially reiterating the handbook they had given us when we arrived. We then broke for lunch, after which we divided up into our actual program groups, and met some of the people we'll be taking classes and doing activities with. So far we've only managed to find about 4.5 Canadians, three of whom are from Queen's. The guy who's going to be teaching us seems pretty cool - he's from Newfoundland, and during his speech he was totally pandering to the Canadians in the audience.

After that, we stopped by Arlington National Cemetary on the way home, but since it was so hot we only made it as far as JFK and RFK's tombs before turning back. Luckily the grave of William Howard Taft was on the way, so I took a couple of pictures for my brother. I wasn't sure, but it looked like it might have been a double-width plot... I plan to return when it's cooler to walk all the way up to the unknown soldiers, the Challenger/Columbia memorial, and the mast of the USS Maine. I know, I'm a geek, but it's why you collectively love me.

So, I've returned home now and have been writing this for quite a while. It's funny how these blog entries tend to run-on and generally get out of hand. So this will be where I call it quits for today. And don't worry, this time I won't cheat and add on two more paragraphs about food (although I did try black-coloured sour grape Mountain Dew, but I digress). Tomorrow afternoon there's some kind of bbq in a park somewhere that I think I'll be attending, and then... who knows?