Summer Solstice

Another Friday, another evening of jazz in the sculpture garden. this time we took a blanket, snacks, and a few more people. It was not as hot as last time, although the music was not as good either. Still, it was a great time of relaxing and getting to know some of the other summer interns.

Saturday was a summer solstice pool party here in the neighborhood. I forgot how much I enjoy lounging in the sun!

Today I visited the Newseum, a recent addition to the Washington, DC scene. Despite the $20 entrance fee (most of the museums here are free), another summer intern (Ellie) and I decided to check it out. We started in the gallery of Pulitzer Prize winning photographs. At first I thought, "Ooooh, this should be good," but my interest very quickly turned to sadness. What I didn't realize is how much news is about death, destruction, hatred, and violence. So many of the photos wrenched my heart and really made me wonder how someone could take a picture of that without doing something. Pictures of starving children, executions in Africa, children running from a city being bombed... Sobering. Certainly, some of the photos were beautiful and touching in a positive way, but it was hard to view them in the context of the tragedies.
Other exhibits were much easier to view, my favorite was a timeline of newspapers. The first sets were from the 1500s! There were papers highlighting every critical moment of history for over 500 years. To see them with my own eyes was incredible!
They also have a peice of the Berlin Wall there, with a guard tower, too. I wanted to touch it with my own hands, feel the cement that separated and imprisoned so many people. But there were signs posted saying not to touch it.

After the Newseum, I wandered around Chinatown. This was definitely more of an urban center than I've seen yet. We grabbed some dinner at the Chinatown Garden (delicious fried rice!), and headed home.