Wednesday

Phew, I'm getting tired - and boy do my feet hurt. At the end of today, I really can't even believe we kept to all our agenda items. We did really well getting to the National Geographic Museum to see the Terra Cotta Warriors. They were pretty amazing - I think even the least interested among us ended up learning something and enjoying it ... it really was a well done exhibit. We had an audio guide & shared it among ourselves, but even just with the information posted to read throughout the exhibit, it was very informative.

From there, we headed to the National Cathedral. It was over a mile walk from the train station, but by that time, the day was getting nicer and nicer. I think it got up to about 70 degres and sunny - which helped for the walk. The Cathedral was beautiful. It reminded me (and Peter) of the cathedrals of Europe, but of course ours is only about 20 years old. We saw the noon day sun coming through the stained glass, the end of a worship service, and a presentation of the over 10,000 pipe organ. Then we went outside to the Bishop's Garden - the day just got nicer and nicer.

We took the train back into the city (after lunch and another long walk). We got to take some photos near the White House. It was such a nice day, we decided to relax for a few minutes. How could we have known that our path around the White House would be closed off, and we would have to walk a full half mile out of our way to follow the instructions of the officials directing us?

Long story - Long walk - Long RUN, really... we made it by about 30 seconds to the appointment we had for the girls to become spies at the Spy Museum.

Phew! I studied every square inch of this city on online maps for six months... I planned every step... and still it turns out there are some things I can't control. Who knew???

We came home about 6:30 and everyone had leftovers for dinner. God bless leftovers!

Tomorrow... not sure if I'm ready to think about tomorrow! Except to say that tomorrow is our LAST fixed appointment! Not that I complain - our fixed appointments have saved us HOURS if not WHOLE DAYS in line - but the time pressure is ALOT.

But the girls are SO great... they run when I tell them to run, they're patient with my incertitude on which street to turn onto, and they eat leftovers.

The weather tomorrow & Friday is supposed to be even better than today.

Now Peter & I watch Jerry McGuire :-) And I will see about getting some photos up for you all.

~JSW