Visit weekend #1 - Night Siteseeing

Dave, Rich and Katy came to visit me this weekend. They took off from Princeton after the PACM student seminar. They got to DC in time to watch the 2nd half of the Presidential debate while I picked up from indian food for us from the Capitol Hill Tandoori Grill.

Afterwards, we headed to the Hawk and Dove for some drinks. On the way there, Dave and Katy spotted the Capitol Building. I noticed that the light was on in the dome, and thought that I'd remembered reading that when the light was on, Congress was still in session. We headed over to the House side, where we realized that if a flag is flying on the side of the Senate or the House, it means that they are in session. We stopped in to the House office buildings and got everyone gallery passes, and we waited in the Gallery for some action. Unfortunately, the House had taken an extended recess from 12:00 midnight to after1:00 am. After sitting and marveling for a while, and meeting a very strange man who expounded on plural marriages, we decided to move on to somewhere else. Dave was satisfied to see that our lawmakers were still hard at work on a Fri. night/early Saturday morning. The guards told us that they'd probably adjorn the session around 4 am, as they had been all week long. We didn't want to wait that long.

So, we headed to the Einstein statue at the National Academies of Science building. There were still people out getting their pictures taken with Einstein around 2 am. While we were at it, we figured we'd hit the Lincoln Memorial too, since it was just across the street. At night, everything is lit up and the crowds of tourists are sleeping. There were about a dozen people milling around at the monument, but mostly young, high school aged people. We drove past the White House, but couldn't really see it. That is not lit up at night. We finally got home and got to bed after 3 am. My plans for an early start the next morning would need to be readjusted...