anniversed

So we went to (where else?) D.C. for our anniversary. It's totally our "go to" place. Amazing place, lots of free things to do, but even more - the free things are beautiful, inspiring, educational. The following about sums it up:

1. Our hotel was the convention location of ANIME U.S.A 2008. Okay. Seriously? It was like I was back in Tokyo, but backwards. Imagine several hundred white people (aged 16-25) trying to look like Japanese youth trying to make a statement. Which means they took the Harajuku look to the tenth power. Wigs, artificial battle wounds, ninja outfits, plus your classic Nintendo characters floating around. NOT NORMAL. But then the more we thought about it, the more we kind of liked the idea of these people having a place where they could go and have friends and be themselves.

It's kind of like when I go to the store. Luckily, myself doesn't require the use of moon boots or a pink wig.

2. We try to do one new thing every time we go to D.C. This time we stopped in Virginia at the Udvar-Hazy Air & Space Museum. If you have children, particularly those who think they can fly or those who want to fly, it's worth a visit. It's an absolutely amazing collection of aircraft dating back to the Wright boys and including the Enola Gay, a Lockheed Blackbird, and a Concorde. My heart has a little tender spot for flight and aircraft - the papa is a private pilot and he's worked at SkyWest Airlines for an eternity. I also did a little stint at the airline (not as a flight attendant because I know that's what you were going to ask, actually in the Communications Department - makes more sense right?). So the museum made me feel right at home.

Note: It does cost twelve buckos to park there, it is in no way near the other Smithsonian museums, but I think it's totally worth it.

3. For our anniversary dinner, we didn't really have a location in mind. In fact, we were suited up to head downtown to take night shots after dinner. So off we go looking like we stepped right out of Tourists 'R' Us. Then we smelled steak. Really yummy, delicious, aromatic steak. If I were Japanese I'd call it yummy and yummy so much. The aroma picked us up and deposited us - in our jeans, flip flops, back pack, the whole bit - in the lobby of Ruth's Chris Steak House.

I'm pretty sure that as we marched back to our table (heads held high), a woman with hair just as high dropped a hunk of steak onto her bedazzled skirt as she witnessed the spectacle that was us.

What?

I know, you're trying to decide if you're embarrassed or if you're secretly jealous that we ate really delicious steak. IN. OUR. JEANS.