Oh Say Can You See...

This weekend I went to Fort McHenry, the birthplace of our national anthem. It's just outside of Baltimore, MD, about an hour from where I live. What a cool place too. I went with Dan and his roommate Steve. They'd both been before, but this was my first time. (I'm having a lot of firsts out here!) We started out in a visitor's center reading about the War of 1812, the writing of the anthem, its rise to popularity, and the uses of the fort during other major wars. We watched about a 20 minute video that was specifically about Francis Scott Key and the circumstances in which he wrote the famous poem which was later put to music. (As an interesting note, the tune was a well-known drinking song called "To Anacreon in Heaven." Anacreon was an old Greek poet famous for writing drinking songs. So there you have it. A drinking song about a guy who wrote drinking songs.) But the coolest part of the presentation was that when the video ended, they started playing the anthem and raised the movie screen to expose a huge window that looked out to the fort with a huge American flag flying. How can you help but feel patriotic!


We got to walk around Fort McHenry and see the cannons, quarters, etc. It was cool to put together what all of the parts of the song mean. (What exactly are the ramparts? I learned they are the walls of the fort.) I feel like visiting historic sites like this puts into perspective what has been done to create and preserve this country. I'm sure I was probably taught all about this somewhere along the lines of my education, but I think I'll actually remember a lot more about it this time.

Open Doors at Foreign Embassies

The last two weekends I embarked on a world tour without ever getting on a plane. The past two weekends in Washington DC many of the embassies held special open houses for the public. The nations of the EU held their open house on May 7 and nations of the rest of the world were open on May 14. Of course, not all were participating, but there were still more than you could possibly visit all in one day!

The first weekend here I went downtown with my brother Dan and his roommate Steve. We went to the British Embassy and had a great time. They had a display about National Geographic Magazine, so we took our picture inside the infamous yellow rectangle. I think we are not quite cultural or interesting to ever appear in the magazine, so this was our moment to shine. Looks to me like an issue you wouldn't want to miss!


Also, we met some nice English Gents in traditional costume.


I passed up the chance to to have my picture taken however with the large poster of William and Kate at the royal wedding. We toured the gardens and had a great time.

Last Saturday we got an earlier start to embassy day and began at the Thailand Embassy around 11 am. It was so cool there! They had all kinds of crafts, ladies carving soap into flowers, performers, food, and paintings. One of the paintings was actually painted by an elephant! It was very cool. The food looked delicious and as I hadn't had time to eat breakfast, I decided to buy some. The foodie that I am, I loved it. The hardest part was deciding which thing to get!


Next we went to the Ukranian Embassy, followed by the Embassy of Saudi Arabia. That was cool. Saudi Arabia and Thailand were both my favorite. I would have a hard time deciding between the two which was the coolest. It was a beautiful place and they fed us a full lunch! So yes, just after eating an entire plate of Thai food (although Dan helped me eat some of it) I had a full plate of Saudi cuisine. It was fantastic. I just figure the Thai food was breakfast, this was lunch. Never mind that it was only an hour or so apart! If I'd been thinking, I would have taken a picture of the food for this blog, but I am not yet in the habit of photographing everything. I've been told though that starting a blog would inspire me to take more pictures because I'll want to be able to post them and blog about what I'm doing. So we'll see.

We went up to a different area of DC and went to several more, including, Austrailia, Botswana, the Islands of Micronesia, and Trinidad and Tobago. Trinidad was very loud! It seemed that the only thing they wanted to show off about their culture was their ability to party! Check out this hat I tried on!

Graduation and a new start in the East

I'm starting a blog. I can't believe I'm actually doing this, but why not? Right? I just moved all the way across the country and I'm starting out on an adventure, so what better way to record it, complete with pictures. This way I can let my friends see a little of what I'm up to out here! Not to mention that I'm not yet working, so I have some spare time between job searching to do something like this.

On April 21 and 22, I graduated from Brigham Young University. What a great feeling! In a way, it kind of doesn't seem real. Up to this point in my life, school was almost always the next step into "my future." And now here I am all finished and with no plans to return for further education. While I have loved school, all good things must come to an end, and I am at that end and ready to move forward into a new stage of life. Here's me ringing the Victory Bell.


My parents came down for the graduation and Matt and Hilary brought Jason. I am sure going to miss playing with my adorable little nephew! I have such a great family and I am so grateful that everyone has been so supportive of me in this crazy move of mine all the way across the country.

James and I started the cross country drive on Monday, May 25. It was a long drive, but actually pretty fun too. I'm glad I got to spend the time with my brother. We only got minorly lost, and we both decided that Ohio is a ridiculous state. In Ohio we saw Delaware, Nevada, Lima, Africa, Lisbon, Liverpool, Calcutta, and Palestine. Check out a map sometime. You'll see even more unoriginal names borrowed from places elsewhere, we just didn't happen to drive close enough to see the actual road signs for them.

While in Nebraska, we stopped in Omaha to see the Winter Quarters Temple and Visitor's Center. That was really neat and I'm glad we stopped there. James and I were grateful for our car as we thought about how the pioneers took several months to cover the ground in wagons and handcarts that we had covered in less than two days of driving in a car. I'm glad that we made this stop along our way to visit the historic site and remember the pioneers.