A Rally for the sake of ...Rallying?

I'm sure most of you by now have seen the photos, or watched it on TV. Last weekend was the Rally to Restore Sanity and/ or Fear hosted by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. If you haven't heard anything about it, look it up! There were some great speeches, performances, comedy segments, signs, and costumes, and I was one of the lucky 250,000 or so in attendance!

Since I'm normally a very opinionated person and love my politics, I could have a lot to say on that aspect of the rally, but that was not the intention of this blog, and I really feel that this rally was not out to divide us on any serious party or platform lines. I think it accomplished everything it intended to do: bring together peaceful, intelligent, forward thinking Americans who just wanted to get together and have a good time while still letting our country know that we expect change and progress.

This trip was also multi-purpose. I was able to visit my brother who has been working/ studying in DC since August. He's doing a really amazing program through the University of Texas that takes a very select few students from all the UT schools to do political internships while continuing to take classes and it seems like he's getting an amazing experience. I'm a little jealous, but mostly....aw, shucks, I'm just a proud big sis :)  I flew up to DC the Thursday before the rally so before and after, I got to hang out with him, meet his friends, and explore the Capital. I'll keep the words short and just give you a photo recap!

Hey there Abe! I actually had not made it here when I was in DC back in June. 

Me and the parents behind the Jefferson Memorial. It has beautiful fountains! There's also a long waterside walk and park that was perfect to walk through at sunset. 

My little brothers. David on the left is the one working in DC. Michael on the right is in high school here in Houston. This dinner was in Arlington near our hotel. It included some delicious gnocchi that I only got to hear about because they had cheese, but my pizza was delicious as well. 

I had perfect timing on this photo! 5 minutes later when my dad wanted to take the same one on his camera, the sun wasn't hitting it the same way. 

Crazy amounts of people in front of me. I could barely see those screens, I was holding the camera as high as I could here and on my toes! 

Oh the signs, haha. There were so many good ones!

We found fellow Texans!

More people behind me extending all the way down the Mall. 

That was the rally, and I had so much fun being in such a huge crowd of super excited people! And also knowing that all the great performers like Cat Stevens, Sheryl Crow, Ozzy Osbourne, Stewart and Colbert, and so many others were up there in the same general area was kind of cool even though I was no where near close enough to see them. 

Some other things to add to my summer DC guide- I went back to the Museum of American History, and that was a lot of fun. I had two lunches at Sweet Green, where you make your own giant salad. It has tons of fresh options, including the seasonal squash, and you HAVE to get the falafel. I also tried Java Green and tried kelp noodles for the first time. They were a little weird, and definitely no replacement for noodles, but the texture kind of grew on me. The way they were prepared was way too spicy though. It's a cool restaurant but definitely for the more adventurous taste buds, and I did really enjoy the big cookie I took for dessert! I love anytime I can get vegan cookies. My family also tried Obama's favorite burger place. I'm blanking on the name at the moment, but they all really liked it and it's a really popular place on Capital Hill. David, if you read this, what's it called??

The first night I went to the Lincoln Memorial and Jefferson Memorial, and as I mentioned earlier, the park behind the Jefferson Memorial is really nice to walk through. We also went back to Georgetown for a nice early morning stroll down M Street , and that's always a cute area, but most things are closed on Sunday mornings. 

All in all, short trip but I had a good time! 

Tomorrow early early AM I'm off to NY again! I'm living on airplanes these days, but I can't wait to meet up with more bloggers and do some more work networking this week. That means I'll be checking in soon with more fun in the city!