Mad Hawk Comes to Visit!

Thursday morning October 22 I was trying to pay attention to the film in History, but I just couldn't... I was directing Mad Hawk off the Amtrak and on to the Metro via text message!! As soon as I got out of class I grabbed a shuttle bus to the Vienna Metro station to meet him as he got off the train. We came back to GMU to deposit his stuff and get some lunch at the JC.

Then into the City we went!! We got on the Metro to the Brookland/CUA stop so we could go to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on the Catholic University of America campus. We transferred to the red line at Metro Center. While we were waiting on the train Mad Hawk says, "There's a Franciscan." I say, "What?" and he points out a man in black robes wearing a ball cap. We determine he is probably going to the same place as us and we follow him. Sure enough, he also gets off at the CUA stop and we follow him halfway to the Shrine.

The Shrine was incredible! The entire place is covered in billions of tiny pieces of glass making up hundreds of mosaics. I had the good fortune of traveling with a theology major, otherwise I would not have understood anything :)

After a walk to the Ukrainian shrine up the hill (it was locked), we got back on the metro to the D.C. Mall/Smithsonian area. We went up to the Museum of The American Indian, but it was 30 minutes till closing time so we decided not to try it. Instead we wandered around on the mall taking pictures and found ourselves at the World War II monument. At this point we were both exhausted, so we caught a train back to Fairfax.

We went to dinner at The Rat on campus. We were very excited to discover they have Old Dominion Brewery Root Beer on tap :) This was my beverage of choice for the evening, Mad Hawk tried the Old Dominion Brewery Dortmunder Lager. The rest of the evening was spent watching "Flight of the Conchords" and Football.

Friday morning was fairly relaxed. We got up, I went to my one class and Mad Hawk worked on his thesis. When I got out of class, we packed up our stuff and met mom to take us to the National Firearms Museum. Two gun enthusiasts on 9 hours of sleep in a building full of 2000 guns... Happy, happy :)

I had a great couple days and I think Mad Hawk did too. Hopefully I will be able to visit him in the spring and we can add to our adventures.