Embassy Days

Beware this is a long and boring post and is really just for me to remember... but feel free to read it to get yourself to sleep. ;)

Every year, several embassies in Washington D.C. open their doors to visitors without needing a passport. It happens two Saturdays in May. One Saturday is non-EU countries and the second Saturday is EU countries. Not every embassy chooses to open their doors (which is completely understandable). I've been to Embassy days multiple times over the years and I've enjoyed it every time I've gone! 

I think one thing about going is knowing what to expect when visiting. There will be lines, some lines are short and some lines are really long (but there will always be lines). Some embassies are not super exciting and that's okay but maybe a little disappointing too. Sometimes there's free samples of food and sometimes you have to pay for the food. Also, seeing multiple embassies in a day will require a lot of walking. Sometimes you might only get to two embassies in one day (and that's okay) and sometimes you might get to five embassies. It all depends on the lines and the distance the embassies are from each other. 

It's really interesting to visit the embassies and try their food (when they have it) and talk to native people from that country and see the beautiful buildings and grounds where the embassy is located. Make sure to go with good friends and it will make the day even better. (I don't know why I'm mentioning all of the details about going, but I guess for future reference I wanted to write it down).

I invited two of my friends, Heather and Sandy, to join me on the first Saturday to visit some non-EU embassies. Our first stop was the Indonesian embassy. The building was pretty! Look at that staircase and the window on the ceiling, so pretty!

There wasn't much going on at the Indonesian embassy, but the building was cool!

Next stop was the South Korean embassy (I actually think it was the Korean Cultural House). I, of course, had to visit South Korea with my love of Korean dramas. :) It was cool to walk around but not much was happening here.

I think after South Korea, we went to the Haiti embassy. The Haiti embassy was super crowded (with no way to get out except to stay in line) and there wasn't much to see. I didn't take a picture there and it took a long time to go through. (I say this to say that sometimes going through an embassy is not all that exciting. I think our biggest problem here was that we still had to wait in line even though we knew we wanted to leave pretty quickly after getting inside but couldn't because of the crowd. It was a bit overwhelming).

After we got through the Haiti embassy, we made our way to the Ukraine House. It was a little bit of a walk to the Ukraine house, but we got to walk through some pretty neighborhoods along the way.

A cool elephant statue we saw in one of the neighborhoods we walked through.

 Another unique elephant statue we saw on our way to the Ukraine House.

 

We made it to the Ukraine House! I really liked this place! As you probably know from previous posts, Ukraine has a special place in my heart.

Click on this picture to make it bigger to read about the slide in the picture below. 

t

This slide was taken from a playground in Ukraine after Russia invaded Ukraine and then used the playground (where this slide was located) as a killing ground. (You can read the sign from the picture above this picture to read a little more about it.)

The Russians need to get the hell out of Ukraine. Russia has no reason to be invading there.

A shirt that Volodymyr Zelenskyy wore! Read the sign from the picture below to learn more about the shirt.

I think Zelenskyy rocks!

 

Outside of the Ukraine House, they had tables set up of Ukrainian books, souvenirs, and food that you could buy. All of the proceeds goes directly to Ukrainian people or businesses. I bought a bracelet with the Ukrainian flag colors and I bought some delicious Ukrainian caramels that I remember eating when I lived there. 

 

After we finished at the Ukraine House, we made our way to the Norway embassy. 

I forgot to bring water with me this day. As we were waiting in line for the Norway Embassy, I mentioned how thirsty I was and some lady walking by heard me say that, so she stopped and asked if I would like an unopened bottle of water that she had. I took it and was thankful for that little bit of water that got me through the rest of our outing.
 

I honestly don't remember what we saw in the Norwegian embassy. (I am writing this post about three weeks after we went there, although I'll back date this post to earlier than when I am writing this). 

All of us who were on our outing to Embassy Days this day. Me, Nancy (a friend of Sandy who joined us), Sandy and Heather. I'm really glad we got to go to Embassy Days this year. Thanks Sandy, Heather, and Nancy for joining me for Embassy Days!

 

I wasn't planning on going to the second Saturday of Embassy days this year, but one of my friends who had never been before asked if I'd like to go with her. I was available to go so Cat and I headed downtown that Saturday morning. We only made it to two embassies this day, but we enjoyed it. We went to the Italian embassy first. 

The inside of the embassy was pretty cool looking! There were a lot of people there. 

There were a few lines inside the embassy that we weren't quite sure what they were for at first (because they all kind of seemed to be mixed together), but we finally figured out that one was for free chocolate samples, one was for pizza slices to buy and another one for drinks to buy. We waited in line for the free chocolates. They were good!

We decided to wait in line for gelato in the courtyard of the Italian embassy. :) I got pistachio flavored and it was delicious! 

It was pretty warm and humid this day and it was supposed to rain the whole day, but thankfully it only rained a little bit.

After the Italian embassy we went to the Danish Embassy and both Cat and I really enjoyed this embassy. 

They had awesome pictures hanging up on the fence in the courtyard. There were all different kinds of pictures but I particularly liked this one. Legos were actually first made in Denmark (which I didn't know until this day at the embassy).

Waiting in line to tour the Danish ambassador's residence. A tour guide took us through the house and he told us that the inside was designed in Danish style and the furniture was made by Danish furniture designers. I really enjoyed this tour. The house was beautiful and the grounds were lovely too! And we got a free sample of cheese and piece of chocolate at the end of the tour. 

 

The courtyard was pretty!

Cat and I were kind of hungry at this point, so we decided to get some food at the Danish embassy. The hot dog had a curry, turmeric, and tartar sauce on it as well as crunchy fried onions and cucumbers. (I added ketchup but I didn't realize until too late that I should have eaten it as they gave it to me without the ketchup. Oh well). Even with the ketchup, I still really enjoyed it! I thought it was good and I liked eating a hot dog like a Danish person would eat it.

In the courtyard of the Danish embassy they had a bunch of booths set up where we could talk to Danish people about certain aspects of their culture. Cat and I visited the hygge booth and chatted with one of the ladies there for about 10 minutes. It was an interesting conversation!

After the Danish embassy, we were trying to decide if we should go to the Irish embassy or the Portuguese embassy. We decided to try for the Portugal embassy but we didn't make it in time. We actually stood in line for quite a while but they ended up cutting us off saying that we wouldn't make it to the embassy before it closed. It was a bit of a bummer, but we were happy that we made it to the Italian and Danish embassies. :)

I'm grateful to live close to Washington DC where such cool events happen every year and I'm grateful for my friends willing to explore with me!

Bluebells

Spring time is a magical time of year with flowers and trees blooming and bright colors coming back to nature. A few weeks ago, I saw someone post pictures on Facebook about the bluebells being in bloom and I decided I needed to try to see them again! 

I saw them in April of 2021 with two of my friends. Here's the link to that time that I went to see the bluebells.

This year, I took my niece and my nephew, Bridgette and Davin, with me to see the bluebells. We drove to Bull Run Regional Park on a beautiful sunny Tuesday morning (the kiddos were on spring break and I was staying with them while their parents were out of town).

It was so pretty! It's hard to capture how cool it actually was in person. If you ever get a chance to see fields of bluebells in bloom in person, I highly recommend it! Pictures don't do it justice.

Bridgette, Davin and I on the bluebell trail. It was a beautiful sunny day that day! 

I actually got to see two different places of beautiful bluebells blooming this year. I heard that River Bend Park near Great Falls had some bluebells also. I had time and it was a nice day on a Monday morning (and I wasn't watching my niece and nephew any more) so I decided to do some hiking at River Bend Park. 

 

 It was soooo worth it! It was gorgeous!

There were bluebells on both sides of the trail and the Potomac River on one side.

 I wish my camera did better at close ups but alas it's not great.

Once again, if you ever get a chance to see bluebells in bloom in person, I highly recommend it! They're so pretty! I'm so glad that I got to go to two places not too far away and see the bluebells.

Clara Barton Missing Soldier's Office Museum and National Portrait Gallery

One of my friends told me about the Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum in downtown Washington D.C. that she had visited a couple of days before. 

 

I had never heard of the museum but it sounded really interesting. I invited two of my friends (who I also used to work with) to go with me to the museum.  I really liked the museum!

 

 

It took about an hour to go through the museum and it cost a little bit of money, but it was worth it. It was really interesting and I learned a lot about Clara Barton. She was an awesome lady!

 

Before going to this museum, I actually hadn't even heard of the Missing Soldiers Office. Clara Barton opened the office in 1865 to help family members of soldiers find their loved ones who were captured or had gone missing during the Civil War. The office stayed open for four years.

In the 1990s, the building where the museum is now was sold to a person who was going to knock the building down.  Someone was searching through the attic before knocking it down and found some stuff connected to Clara Barton. 

After some research they realized that Clara Barton had lived in that building and that the Missing Soldiers Office had also been located in that building. Finding that stuff in the attic saved the building from being knocked down. 

I'm so happy that they didn't end up knocking down the building because what a piece of history would have been lost if they had. Obviously we would have still known about Clara Barton and the Missing Soldiers Office but to be in the actual room where the office was located was awesome!

I don't know if this picture will be big enough to read if you click on it but it's quite an interesting story. The letter on the left is from a sister of a soldier who hadn't heard from her brother in over two years and she wrote to the Missing Soldiers Office asking for help in locating him. Clara Barton put the soldiers name on the Missing Soldiers list that was posted in all of the major cities. 

The middle letter is from the brother to the Missing Soldiers Office. He ended up seeing his own name on the list and wrote back saying he was mortified to see his name on the list and that he would contact his family when he wanted to. (But he hadn't written them in two years and he didn't think that his family might wonder where he was. What a jerk.)

The letter on the right is the letter from Clara Barton to the soldier. Clara Barton wrote the soldier back and put him in his place. I like that the letter shows Clara's personality and let's the soldier know that he was jerk (although the word jerk was not used in the letter). 

The sign they found in the attic of the building that gave a clue that Clara Barton had a connection to this building. 

 

This room is where the Missing Soldiers Office was located when it was open. (Obviously the chairs and the projector were not part of the original office) ;)

Sandy and Heather and I outside of the museum. If you're ever in Washington D.C. and looking for something new to do, I highly recommend visiting this museum!

Since I knew we were going to be downtown around lunchtime I looked up places to eat near where the museum was. I found a pizza place with good reviews (Ella's Wood Fired Kitchen) and we decided to try that. We ended up not eating there, though, because when we arrived there to get a table they couldn't tell us how long the wait was going to be. We were worried the wait might be a long time (since it was clearly a popular place) so we decided to find someplace else to eat.

I remembered this pizza place around the corner (Pi Pizzeria) from previous times I had been downtown and we decided to go there instead. Their wait time was only twenty minutes but ended up being only five minutes. Yay!

Sandy, Heather, and I shared garlic knots and a pizza and we all thoroughly enjoyed the lunch. :) We all said we would happily eat there again. (I really loved the garlic knots there; they were delicious!)

After we ate lunch we visited the National Portrait Gallery to see the new life size painting of President Abraham Lincoln. Not that the painting is new itself (because it was painted in 1865 by W.F.K. Travers) but that it's new to the National Portrait Gallery. It's on a long-term loan from the Hartley Dodge Foundation.

I should've taken a picture of myself with the painting so you could tell how big the painting actually is. Oh well. It was cool to see though!

 

We walked through all of the Presidents Gallery at the National Portrait Museum and I really liked this painting of President Barack Obama.

 

 We saw some other exhibits at the museum and they were cool but I didn't take many other pictures.
 

Going to the National Portrait Gallery was the last thing on our agenda for the day, but Sandy wanted to see the cherry blossoms while we were downtown (especially since the weekend we were there it was peak cherry blossom time).

So we made our way to the Tidal Basin. Along the way to the cherry blossoms we saw this happening in front of the Washington Monument, some sister nuns (I don't know what they're called) playing frisbee. That was a unique sight to see.

We made it to the Tidal Basin! It was really crowded so we didn't walk all of the way around but we got to enjoy seeing some of the cherry blossom trees. 

I didn't take any pictures of the flowers myself because there were so many people and I've been there before and knew I wasn't going to get any great photos that day.

But Heather took this photo and the photo below!

Heather had a nicer camera with her and she's much better at taking photos of flowers than I am.

It was a fun day visiting downtown Washington D.C. and going to a new museum. Thanks Heather and Sandy for coming with me on this field trip!