anyways.
so we drive all night long into DC, i was able to sleep ok, but whatevs . get to St Agnes parish at 7am sunday, unload ourselves off the bus and stiffly down some coffee and muffins. mass was at 9am, it was nice. dont remember much of it, besides thinking that our group probably tripled the college age demographic. the elderly looked happy.
after mass a couple of kids from DC were leading tours, i tagged along one to the Holocaust memorial. ended up dropping off the group, liked it better alone.
its one of those places where it doesnt make sense to be with friends. its not fun, its not picture taking material. i was able to speed through some parts and sneak around some corners, shook off the ND kids.
it was incredibly powerful, and very tastefully done. you take an elevator from the ground floor up to the fourth, and slowly wind your way down. pretty much everyone who volunteers there is a holocaust survivor, when you get on the elevator up they hand you "identification papers", each telling the story of one individual victim.
i died, my friend randomly got the story of the gentleman who was in charge of our elevator.
it was a little overwhelming.
at first it was just numbing, the story of how antisemitism rose in europe, how it got to be so bad with no one doing anything. i was emotionally OK until we got to the part about the kristallnacht pogroms, and they had these gigantic photos of a synagogue in berlin (i think), before and after. before, it was stunning. so beautiful, so meticulously decorated.
after they had a replica of one of the entryways to the holy of holies.
it was beautifully engraved, wooden, and hacked to bits. they also had the original copy of the Torah that was in the synagogue, after the nazis ripped it up and threw it in the street.
i think it was seeing the Torah, in a gianormous glass case that did me in. it was horrific enough seeing the destruction to the synagogue, but actually looking at the Torah ... it was rough.
its the little things you wouldnt think of that really get to you
the concentration camp room was horrific. they have train carts from auschwitz, bunks from dachau, and wax replicas of bodies discovered in mass graves. the hardest part to watch were the videos of the allied troops discovering the camps for the first times.
so many really had absolutely no idea what had been going on, and the looks of shock and revulsion were completely surreal. i mean, you've been fighting across europe, freezing to death, dying of who knows what, and finally the end is near and you're going to rescue some detainees, and you stumble on Auschwitz-Birkenau?
you think you've seen it all already, but you've come no where close to humanity at its worst. while walking from floor to floor, there's a tower that cuts all the way from the bottom up.
"The "Tower of Faces" is a three-floor-high segment of the permanent exhibition at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum devoted to the Jewish community of the Lithuanian town of Eisiskes, which was massacred by units of the German Einsatzgruppe and their Lithuanian auxiliaries in two days of mass shootings on September 25 and 26, 1941 ... For two days 4,000-4,500 Jews were held without food or water. On the third day the killing action began with the mass shooting of all the men at the old Jewish cemetery. The next day the women and children were taken out and shot near the Christian cemetery. Only 29 Jews escaped the slaughter." -memorial website
everyone shown on the tower walls was killed.
after the concentration camp floor, on a catwalk going down to the last level, on the windows overlooking the memorial (sorry, im not describing this well) they have names of people killed, all first, none repeating, just to get a feel for the enormity of it all.
i wasnt going to hold up traffic, so i was just glancing at them as i walked by, more looking through the windows onto the floor below. but as i was walking, "esther" and "gerd" caught my eye, right next to each other. that one hit home. i think everyone thought i was a nutter because i would start crying at the weirdest places.
of course the hall of remembrance is incredibly intense as well. but peaceful, and beautiful. then the gift shop. whoooooeeeeee, i love museum stores. i had the wonderful thought, that if i went to IPS, then i would always get christmas presents from that store. lots of great stuff. sounds wierd, but its true. like WWII movies, and jewish literature, and beautiful handmade stuff from the local jewish community (random, but fun) and little dradles and things.
anyways,. after that i wandered out to the national mall. thats a trippy experience. walking across the street, preoccupied with not getting hit, and WHAM, there's the washington monument. and the capitol. and lincoln. and the WWII memorial. and the SMITHSONIAN. and lots of really big, very official looking buildings. it was redic, in a word. i went to lincoln, because i wanted to see NAM.
that was a let down. the lincoln memorial is preposterously huge, completely out of place, and in no way appropriate. then in comparison, vietnam is completely dwarfed. it was like seeing rushmore after crazy horse. a very, "oh." moment. no one understood why i had no desire to actually go up to the statue of lincoln, and i didnt feel like explaining that the whole thing irritated the dickens out of me
meanwhile, the WWII memorial was amazing. you can tell because i took so many pictures (yes, i updated my photoblog)
anyways, that was pretty much sunday. went back for a huge potluck dinner thrown by the parish. it was really nice. talked with my friends mark-kate and darrah, and philip little and his gf
monday i woke up early, hitched a ride to the metro, and hung out in this mall thing. it was boring. and ugly. i was getting discrouraged, convinced there was no way that i could possibly live in DC, but then i took the next top to the IPS headquarters.
nice place, great part of the city
ive told you how that all went. they're so new and things kept breaking, it was hilarious
after my "interviews" i helped set up for the open house
the admissions dirctor was all, "oh no, its ok, you can sit down" but i told her that i gew up setting up buffet functions, and i was more comfortable with fixing the seating arrangments
it was hilare
it all went wel, they're very nice, and gave us a curb side ride o the national shrine for the vigil mass
mass = a TON of people
it was great, tackled cardinal george after
went to the dominican house of studies, beautiful place
then the next day was breakfast with the presient
whooooeeee
it was great
think really clean bathrooms, marines EVERYwhere, and this awesome piano player man in a bright red uniform
food was good, but all very petite (many jokes about finding a mcdonalds/starbucks after)
yeah
surreal
(this is me picking this post up again after letting it sit for two months)
seeing all the portraits of the presidents was weird, esp that one of kennedy
maybe we dont like him
maybe he caused problems
but that is a beautiful beautiful portrait
and all the stuff of jackie-o, and little dumb things that you just dont notice, but realize after a while you've seen in history books and national geographic, and movies
speaking of movies
i hadnt seen the white house in dc yet, before this excursion
so yeah, we're driving up from st agnes', and all talking about how probably one of us would get the boot by security, and who knows what, like this was just insane
and as we drive up whatever street it is, all of a sudden, THEREs the white house
and no joke, you just see it from the gates and theres all the lawn and its just there and i swear the very very first thing i think of
independence day
i told everyone in the car then and there, they thought it was hilarious and agreed
theres alot of history to that building but when you see it sitting there like that, despite who knows how many shots of it like that you get on the nightly news, really the only image i had in my head was the alien ship right above it, blasting it to smithereens
very very surreal
and now i want to watch it again
but yeah, that was hilarious
so when you're in the white house, eating breakfast, and looking through the windows, that was when it really hit me
from the outside, it looks like the building that exploads spectacularly by aliens
from the inside, looking out towards the capitol, with that fountain thing on the lawn, you really get that *this* is the white house
and pretty much everyone checked out that view
crazy crazy
so after a while we just started wandering like villans, seeing how far we would mender without the secret service/marines freaking out
we realized erveryone was congregating in this room with a podium set up
and think, ooolala
so we (me, mary kate, and mary forr)
all plop down behind some nuns, play the, how many hidden cameras can you find game, and admired this screen set up in the corner, with about four marines standing behind it, and the hints of a sniper rifle, and wondered how much stuff happens every day in DC that no one ever hears about
but yeah, the president comes in, hes really short, and gives a great speech
he noticed the marys and me almost right away, cos everyone else in the room was fairly dignified, but we were just in hysterics
"this is our life? really? WHAT are we doing here?!??! ahhhh its the president!!!"
stuff like that
very similar to what would have happened, had i been there with jacquelyn i think
so he gives us this hysterical look, then makes this face at the nuns, and so after his speech he littlerally *hops* over the shrubbery around the stage, goes up to the nuns, and huddles with them, i have no idea what they were saying and we were the closest people too them
but after he kisses them all on the cheek, and reaches back to shake all our hands
asks where we were from
"notre DAME"
and he consequently pointed out the people who got us in, asked how our trip had been, and did a hand pump thing and gave a "go fighting irish! yeah!"
it was spectacular spectacular
immediately after we all just huddled looking at our hands wondering if we could ever wash them
the ND kids right behind us were very jealous
(oh yeah, i totally won at life that time because i do the double-hand shake if i really mean it, you know shake someones hand and put your other hand on the back of theirs? so BOTH my hands were on the pres, mary and mary only got thier right hahahahahha)
so yeah, we were giddy
after we left the white house we saw the presidential motorcade leaving for who knows where
that was cool too
(a military guy leaning out of a humvee with a sniper rifle)
but yeah
so we changed and went to the national mall
staked out a ND spot near the front
after everyone else met up with us, may mary and i found starbucks (under a golden dome, it was awesome, see pictures)
i was disenchanted with the march, but we have talked about that
overall thought, i suppose it was a success
i got horribly sick because of exposure to the cold
slept most of the way home
yeah
good times
and im posting this even thought its not a blow by blow coz im sick of not posting it
