Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings. ~Heinrich Heine, Almansor, 1823

What a moving day! We began by taking the underground transit to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. It was interesting, to say the least, trying to figure out how to purchase our fare and also how much fare we needed. After talking to the information desk we found our way to the right train and were off.

The Holocaust Museum was very interesting, we toured every room and every floor, starting the with the basement. Nazi Propaganda was the focus on that floor, and I snapped a few pictures before a security guard, who might I add looked a lot like he was right out of "Men In Black" , informed me that picture taking inside the exhibits was not allowed. :'( OOPS. Anyways it was very interesting reading about the Nazi Party's rise to power and then their systematic time line of slowly taking away rights all the way up from antisemitic laws, burning of semitic literature (if you notice my quote at the beginning of this blog) and how displacing their businesses & homes, & burning their synagogues was not protested by the main population, and why/how the ghetto's, concentration camps and extermination was not only covered up, but the 'rumors' of such actually helped the Nazi Party by their ability to deny such thing and blame those at war with them for the 'rumors'. And that was just in depth for that part of the museum, so you can imagine how interesting touring the whole place was. One thing I would like to mention though, as it sent chill's down my spine, was while reading in the exhibit that one of the first step's the Nazi Party took to make the people believe Jews were a lesser race was by making marriage between a German and a Jew ILLEGAL. I think you can guess where I am going with this... and no I am not trying to imply that our country is headed for genocide, I just feel very sad that there are so many in this free country that have the same prejudice placed upon them because of other people's beliefs (which are mainly based on religion, not race like Hitler's motive's were). Moving right along..... the rest of the exhibits we visited were Daniel's Story (which we realized was more geared towards little children LOL), the special exhibit which was 4 floors of pictures (some very very graphic pictures, artifacts and an exhibit aimed at Darfur and how we can prevent current and future genocide. There was also a huge beautiful white marble room with black walls and white candles which we could light in remembrance of the 6 million lives lost. The concentration camp names were at the top of these walls. Lighting a few of these candles was my favorite memory. Another thing I will never forget was walking through a room on a bridge with a sea of shoes on both sides of us--- the only thing left of people before they were exterminated. The dusty, old and musty stench was overpowering and I swear I could still smell the blood, sweat and tears.


We decided just to walk around once we left the H.M. and headed in a direction that felt right.... haha total tourist's. As we walked we found a great t-shirt deal from a street vendor and then came across a beautiful garden and red brick castle building that turned out to be the Smithsonian information center. We checked it out a little and continued on. I noticed a huge green field, with dirt paths on either side (more like the size of a road) next to us as we walked and thought about how it was quite a large track. It was separated by a street that we turned on and as we got down the middle of it I was dumbfounded by the sight I saw to the right of me. Capitol Hill was huge and dead center like a perfect postcard. When I exclaimed "Look at that view, can you believe it!?!" Melissa replied "Wait til you look to your Left" and again I gasped at the perfect unobstructed view down the grass at the Washington Monument. We were right between the 2. I realized I was standing dead center in what I was familiar with looking at when there are crowds of hundreds of thousands of people during national celebrations broadcasted on t.v. or reenacted in movies. INCREDIBLE.


After we stopped at a food court, and both ended up with Gyro's and fries from opposite sides of the eating area (LOL) and purchased some more D.C. souvenir's we found us another underground metro station and began the search for our train. Did I mention it was rush hour--5:15 and it was jam-packed? When our train pulled in and emptied I couldn't believe how many people got off, it didn't even look like the train could fit that many bodies. Even crazier was how many of us were trying to get back on. When we finally got to the door (after a ton of people preceded us) Melissa stepped on first and as she turned around and I stepped on she grabbed my arm and quickly pulled me in--- I didn't understand what was going on until I heard the whoosh and slam---- the doors would've closed on my hair they were so quick... and the only thing that stopped them was an old ladie's cane which then got stuck.... I scrambled to get it free, convinced I was about to watch a tragedy and they suddenly burst open for her and we hurried her on. PHEW. Have I mentioned how stressed out public transit makes me?

I was eager to make it to an AA meeting out here so we found one like 10 blocks away that started at 8:30. We got there right at 8:30, though we left with plenty of time, but we got lost a couple times from bad directions and in my opinion bad street signs. The meeting was really good, and it was interesting to see how things are done a little differently, at least at this meeting. For example, when reading how it works EVERYONE in the room recites the steps with the reader, which kind of made Melissa and I giggle because everyone is doing it at their own pace so we kept getting screwed up and leaving words out. Then they never read the traditions. Halfway through the meeting when they sent the basket around was when they did coins and asked if there was anyone that was new. But their stories were all the same.... they used to make poor choices and since they came into the program they have the choice to make better ones, and their lives are better because of it. We felt right at home, and the meeting was full of laughter.

All in all today was an amazing day, and I am pleased that I committed to blogging about it, so that I will remember it vividly years from now. I wish all you westerners well and hope things are sunny for you!! That's all for now..... xoxo