This trip to Washington DC has been interesting. It's my second time in this city but I still have no idea where I'm going. However, I got to see the two things I really wanted to see and I managed to find a new artist to drool over.

I went there to visit my friend Nick, who you may remember as the person who drove me out to Vermont. He came to visit once over the summer and somehow ended up leaving with my Ace Hardware shirt (AKA the most awesome shirt IN THE WORLD and I know he stole it on purpose because he wishes he could wear it). Of course I had to get it back, and because he refused to send it to me, I had to go down there and get it. Not such a bad idea for someone looking for any excuse to bum around.

The weekend started off by waking up late. I'm not much of a sleeping in kind of person, but I enjoyed a slow morning. The only down side being that Nick does not keep food in his house, and I like to eat breakfast. Men. So we went out and had tapas for lunch. Yummy yummy tapas. With goat cheese. How could I decline goat cheese? Nick will disagree with me here, but tomato and watermelon is a yummy combination. When ordering at a new place, I find it's always best to trust the chef and not make substitutions except in the case of dietary needs. I am never disappointed. They wouldn't put it on the menu if it wasn't yummy.

We then rolled on over to the portrait Gallery. I'm not really into portraits of people who are long dead and I've never heard of, but they had some other cool stuff there as well. There was an artist who does Hip-Hip portraits, which were amazing. And what you will need to do is check out Kehinde Wiley right away. The other person That needs checking out is Nam June Paik who I mistook for Bruce Nauman (who I am madly in love with) at first. I love this guy! How amazing is a florescent map of the USA filled with TVs, each with different movies and images that represent the states?!?!? AH!

We headed over to The Kennedy Center after that for their annual open house. We caught a step show, put on by Step Afrika! the worlds only professional dance group dedicated to step. In all honesty I was not that interested in seeing this show, but once it started it was pretty cool. There were a bunch of college groups performing, and one of them was amazing. I guess when it comes down to it, I'm a sucker for a good show, no matter what's on the stage and these guys were great. I probably wouldn't turn down another free step show if given the chance.

After the step show we went outside to see Chuck Brown, DC's Godfather of Go-Go. It was pretty fun. I love watching old white guys (or just Nick)dance to hip-hop. It made me miss my friends from DTF. They would have rocked out all too happily.

Sunday was a great day. Another late start, but I was able to check two things from my list of "Things to See Before I'm Too Old to Care." One being the National Museum of the American Indian. This isn't normally the kind of thing I would go out of my way to see. I'm interested in various cultures and religions, but not enough to make a special trip.

The reason I wanted to see this place so badly was because of the architecture. So much planning and collaboration went into the building of this museum, that I had to see it. It was Designed by Douglas Cardinal and a team of Native architects from different areas of the Americas. The outside of the building is just as much a work of art as what is inside. We spent some time walking around the building before heading inside, which was just as amazing as the outside. I adore when interior spaces flow into each other, and when you can have a sense of the exterior shape from the interior. What an amazing building. I should have been an architect, or at least a design student. But I say that about everything I'm interested in.

More to come later.