Home Sweet Home

So, after the festival we had a sponsor party...one of the highlights was when everyone sang "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" to my Dad. On Tuesday we headed to the airport and after a ridiculously long time in transit (14 hours no joke) we are home! Now I am just relaxing and preparing to leave for London on the 6th.

The Festival = A Success

My title basically sums it up. The Science Festival went off with a smashing horrah horrah perfecto success! The weather was perfect, the exhibits cool, the turnout AMAZING, and all in all a blast! Attendance estimates are not yet in but were guessing somewhere around 600,000!

Opps I should have posted this earlier!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDxTw1sUKvk&feature=youtu.be

President Obama on the festival!

Indecisiveness

Slept at the Sam's house, woke up really late, went to the Phillips museum, found our delicious Trickling Springs ice cream, went on walk, visited Supreme Court building, oh btw Quincy and John are here!, checked out our hotel-ish, went to the Academy of Science's Communication Awards, left the building only to find our car was gone!!!!....it had been towed--i cried. Returned to hotel, tried to decide what to do next...to go Contra Dancing or not to go? Decided to go, got in the car and then didn't.

Vacay Day 2

Woke up, lounged around forever looking at flats to rent in London, then headed to breakfast. In the dining room, despite my hunger, decided to have just an english muffin after seeing the $8 cereal and $8.50 yogurt.....After our nourishment we went on a bike ride all around St. Michaels. We ended up in town were we bought ourselves some yogurt at the local grocery store for the much more reasonable price of $2.50 for four containers. Once back at the hotel we ate our yogurt in adirondack chairs by the bay! Then onto painting on the patio. While we painted a wedding started on the grass of a couple who eloped and we lucked into getting to listen to their violinist play as we painted!

Hey Hey, Good Day!

I got my Visa!, well it was issued to me...I don't yet have it in my possession as they are sending it to our house in San Diego not Washington DC but still! The hard part is done.

Meanwhile, Madre y Yo are on a mini vacation in St. Michaels, Maryland, a quaint waterside town. Yesterday we walked around the town looking in shop windows. We passed a church rummage sale and I bought a pair of Ferragamo shoes for 1 dollar! Instead of eating a traditional dinner I had high tea in a really sweetly decorated room in our hotel. The scones were absolutely scrumptious and the lemon curd some of the best I have ever had!

I can't upload any photos because I don't have my camera cable but this is our lovely hotel The Inn at Perry Cabin.

...

Went to the Museum of American History as a guest of Hilary's aunt to see a new collection on Celluloid Plastics. The curator talked to us about the exhibition as did the owner of the plastic items. The coolest part was when we got to go into one of the store rooms in the museum and see all the random items they have in their off-show collections in storage. After the program a group of ladies and mommy and I went out to lunch at the Willard Hotel.

Following lunch Madre y yo went to the British Embassy to beg assistance in my deathly visa troubles but they would not let us through the gate, would only talk to us through a little intercom box and we of absolutely no assistance.

And that was my day..

Tragical

So the process of getting my visa for England has been one of the most painful processes of my entire life!....last Thursday we finally finished the application and sent it to the consulate. We paid the $150 expedite fee for a two day turn around which should have brought the visa to our doorstep today. Hmmmm no visa and no confirmation that it was ever even initially processed.

Here begins the saga of the stinking visa Part II: The code marking it as a priority application was on the outside of the manilla envelope we took to UPS. Here is the important deathly part. UPS put our envelope into a UPS envelope for mailing thus covering the code and thus resulting in the placement of my application in the pile with all standard processes visa applications...which take 2 months to return. So what's the big deal, why not just call the consulate?...because apparently the consulate has no telephone, somehow I do not believe this...and thus are entirely unreachable.

Why not reapply you might ask? I can not reapply because they have my passport. Thus making it impossible for me to even leave the country as a tourist. Death

You know, just sitting here in the White House

Modesty

My sister just reminded me something that I am quite pleased with. My family attended a Federation of American Scientist dinner in which two people were being honored. There was a video that one of the winners wished to show but the staff couldn't get it to play...They scrambled about forever while the woman continued to talk on and on and on, waiting for the video to play...it was SO painful, like literally she talked for like 45 minutes. The event was attended by all high profile scientists (including Obama's science advisor) and through out the woman's speech various scientists would saunter smugly up to the television to join the struggle of playing the DVD. Soon enough though their confidence turned to failure and a new tide would come up for an attempt to prove themselves. Needless to say they all failed and eventually gave up. When the girl originally in charge of playing the video returned to her seat (next to me) I asked her "is this a dvd your playing...?" (I recognized the format of the main menu page--and just wanted to confirm). When she responded in the affirmative I said, "You need to press play."

All these scientists who had rewired the television/audio system because "there was no sound!!" had no sound because they never pressed play! DUH. We she scurried up to the laptop plugged into the television, pressed play and volia it worked!

My Dad even jestingly shouted "all these famous scientist and it took my teenage daughter to fix it!"

The Mall

What's up in the White House?

Today I went to the White House Science Fair as a representative of the USA Science Festival. My moments of glory were when I located the press holding area and gave an impromptu speech on the festival encouraging the press to spread the word and then secondly when I shook president Obama's hand, gave him a brochure about the festival and said "Hello Mr. President. I hope you and your family will come to the USA Science and Engineering Festival in your very own backyard, the National Mall, this coming weekend."

I also got to wander the White House and I set up my camera on continuous self-timer mode and had a mini photo shoot!

I also chatted with the Myth Busters and Bill Nye!

Afterwards I met my Mom at the National Archives and we then proceeded to the Holocaust Museum.

Behind, again...

Thursday: Worked at CSI

Friday: Visited Gettysburg and went on a horseback riding trail ride through the battlefield.

Saturday: White House Garden Tour, Washington Monument, Building Museum, met up with the Nobles at Teaism, FDR memorial, then home.

Sunday: Eastern Market, USASEF Volunteer Training, lunch at Founding Farmers, went to St. Albans Church, dessert with the Rambeau family (Lockheed Martin connection).

Let's See..

Monday: I worked at CSI and then went downtown with Ruth and Mommy to walk the monuments at night.


Tuesday: Helped at a Nifty Fifty. One of Quincy's professors, an evolutionary biologist, named Andrew Berry did a presentation at a high school in Baltimore. His talk was absolutely fascinating but I was appalled by the behavior of the students. At Bishop's there is a baseline level of respect I just presumed was standard--not at all at this school! I literally was embarrassed to call these kids my fellow Americans (the speaker was British--I can't imagine what he know thinks of our schools and greater culture!) I am being very harsh--the majority of the kids were well behaved but a few poorly behaved ones can completely alter the tone. One example I feel sums up the mediocrity--a girl smack in front of Mr. Berry (second row) sprawled herself out for a nap and proceeded to sleep. About 15 minutes into the presentation Mr. Berry light heartedly woke her up. She opened her eyes, looked at him, and promptly closed her eyes to sleep again (all while he was watching)! Later when she finally roused herself she took out her cell phone and began to blatantly text during the talk. UHHGGGGG! This is a Harvard professor who flew at his own expense to Baltimore, solely to give this presentation and she can't even muster the respect to at least maintain a vertical position. I really wanted to go up to her after the presentation and give her a piece of my mind but I whimped out. Anyway after the Nifty Fifty we had a late lunch with Faraz and then went home to relax.


Wednesday: Had my biometric appointment for the never-ending visa process. We finally sent off the application to the consulate and as we left UPS we were walking by this store front that had a promotional sign for $48 dollars massages and as we read it this asian woman came out of the shop and handed us a brochure and offered us a 5 minute sample massage--we liked it so much we stayed for a real one! It was a very appropriate end to a very stressful processes! After that we made our way to the National Geographic Museum where we met up with Ms. Trainor, Ms. Svendson, Erik and Monique. We saw a Gecko exhibit and a photographic exhibit named "Simply Beautiful". Next we drove to the Jefferson Memorial and then walked to the Holocaust museum. Thus far we have only finished the very first room of the exhibit and we have gone twice! Following the museum we headed to Dupont Circle to meet up with Jenny Dean, we sat and chit chatted briefly at a Starbucks. Afterward madre y yo went to a restaurant called Teaism for a light dinner. The day was rounded off with watching Glee.

Pretty Field in Virginia

Fall Foliage

View from our hike!

Where's the Trail?

So my Mom and I went on a field trip to Virginia to visit a lot of country towns. We went on a hike on the Appalachian trail except we kind of missed the trail and just went down this forest bank--when we caught on that this was probably not the right way to go we turned back--this was the "trail" we had accidentally taken. We did eventually find the correct path!

Patterns in the Sky

Crazy Cat--look at that jump!

A Jaunt Home = Art Time

Blog Blitz

I have not kept up-to-date at all! I have been so busy and allowed time to elapse so I shall have to represent the past 10 days in pictures!

Happy Birthday Baba!

We celebrated my grandma's 82nd birthday yesterday. We went out to lunch in downtown LA at Bottega Louie-a trendy all white Italian restaurant-and ate delicious caprese and pizza margarita. Back at the house we brought old stuff out of the attic and got thoroughly dusty going through old clothes and papers. I found some cute old blouses and we read some funny essays my grandmother had written in high school. It was an amazing snapshot into the social changes that have transpired from her childhood to mine...

In celebration of the big day we went to Marie Calendars and then to the Downey theatre to see No No Nanette. I liked the production...well what I saw of it. Being on East Coast time and having had a wearing two days I fell asleep about half way through the first act and continued my doze through the second. I can say though that the singing was really top notch and I saw one very impressive tap dance number!