On Friday, we got to go to a briefing at the State Department instead of our usual 3 hour boring seminar. There were two foreign service employees who handle political and economic relations with Japan there, and they spoke a lot about their jobs and let us ask questions about their work and the country in general. It was really interesting. They talked about how Japan's economy is considered "the miracle of the 20th century" because of its ability to come from being virtually destroyed to being the second most powerful in the world.
After our briefing, we all decided to go out and try Ethiopian food for the first time. There are a lot of really diverse food options all over the city, and I am trying to experiment as much as possible. It was me, Caitlyn, Alyssa, and Alyssa's friend Chelsey who was visiting from San Diego for the weekend. Ethiopian food is really communal, so the waitress brought out everything we ordered on a massive platter draped with a sheet of this moist bread called injera, which has sort of the texture of slightly thick crepes with a zesty/bitter taste like lemon. On top of the injera was everything we ordered--crispy chickpea balls simmered in a (very) spicy red sauce kind of like falafel, and chicken in a similar sauce. It also came with some kind of shredded vegetable that looked like collard greens and a mix of diced tomatoes, onions, and spicy red peppers that was kind of like pico de gallo, and two extra sides of injera. We didn't know exactly what we were doing, but we figured you are supposed to fill the injera with all the different items, sort of like a fajita, so that's what we did. I thought it was really delicious, very spicy and bold flavors with kind of a curry taste, and the lemony tartness of the injera balanced it out really well. We also got two appetizers-- this thing called sambusa which is kind of like an empanada/egg roll... it's a crispy pastry shell stuffed with either seasoned vegetables or meat. We chose the veggie ones, and they came with what seemed to be almost a puree of black beans, mushrooms, etc, but it was really savory and tasty and at first we couldn't even tell it wasn't meat. We also got a "salad" that was basically soggy injera mixed with the pico de gallo-esque mixture, which I didn't like as much. All in all though, it was really delicious and satisfying and I would definitely eat it again.
After we ate, we went to the National Zoo, which I didn't really want to do at first because zoos make me sad but I decided to go anyway. There were a lot of cool animals, but I just hate seeing them cooped up or not cared for correctly, or just in an environment that is ill suited for them compared to their natural habitat. It was really hot outside, so a lot of them weren't visible anyway because they were trying to escape the heat in their caves or find some shade somewhere. My favorite were the otters, they were really cute and were all cuddling with each other. We got kind of burnt out on the zoo early because it was so hot and humid, so we headed home.
Saturday 4/26/08
Caitlyn and I decided to go check out the National Geographic Museum since it's free and right around the corner from us. They had a special frog exhibit with live frogs in terrariums from all around the world, and some really crazy ones that I've never seen or heard of before. It was actually really cool to look at all of them. They also had a special exhibit called "Trash People" that has traveled to places all over the world including Moscow, the Great Wall of China, etc, and now it's here so that's exciting. Basically, a German artist created a life-size "army" of people made out of trash and other discarded materials to demonstrate the impact of human consumerism. Some were made out of cans, toiletry bottles, computer parts, styrofoam, etc. It was also kind of an interesting statement about globalization, because there was all this trash mixed together from all different parts of the world... German seltzer water next to French soda, Pantene Pro V shampoo and Japanese electronics. I thought it was really cool, but Caitlyn thought it was kind of gross
They also had another display on human consumerism and its impact on the earth, and took photos of (for example) 13,000 or so pints of milk that one American apparently consumes in a lifetime all lined up on a suburban street. One of the craziest statistics that I saw was that it takes 500,000 trees just to publish ONE Sunday's worth of newspapers, just for America. There was also a huge display on China, and how its development and globalization are merging with traditional customs and culture. Later, I met up with Alyssa and Chelsey in Chinatown and we ate at a really yummy cheap place called Full Kee. There are lots of cool restaurants and shops down there, but I didn't really get a chance to do anything besides eat because it was getting late and the area doesn't seem to be the best at night.
At night, I went on a night tour of the monuments with Aly and Chelsey while Caitlyn had dinner in Georgetown with her cousins who were in town. We didn't go on a real "tour" with a guide, but just walked around by ourselves and looked at stuff. Everything looks so different at night, and it's cool because it's all really well illuminated. The Korean memorial is especially eerie, they have statues of soldiers walking around as if they're on a battlefield, and at night they glow and look very ghostly. When we got to Abe, it started pouring really hard with a lightning/thunder storm so we sat there for a while and just kind of waited it out for a half hour or so, then walked home when it abated. We still got pretty wet though. After that we just came home and watched SNL... there's really nothing else to do in this town if you're underage.
Sunday 4/27/08
Today it was still wet, rainy, and depressing, and we decided it was a good day for an indoors activity so Caitlyn, Aly, Chelsey and I all went to the Holocaust Museum. It was 4 floors tall and after 2 1/2 hours, we only got through 2 floors and then they closed. It is really well done, and a really engulfing experience to spend a lot of time there. I definitely want to go back and see the rest.
