today’s big plan was to go to the arlington national cemetery.

i woke up at 6:30 and studied mandarin for about 30 minutes.

i sat on the porch and had about 1.5 liters of water to start my day.

i then put on my makeup, got dressed, and went outside to take pictures of the foliage in the woods around colette’s house. here’s some of the pictures i took. they’re out of focus, sorry.

 

 

we sat around and did the finishing touches to getting ready and then we were off.

we took the metro to rosslyn and then switched to get to the arlington cemetery.

i didn’t take many pictures out of respect but i’ll give you a brief synopsis. we took the tram tour around.

stop 1: JFK’s grave and the eternal flame. it was really nice to see. i have a mild obsession with jackie so it felt like a pilgimage to see her.

stop 2: Coast Guard Memorial

stop 3: Pershing Gravesite

stop 4: Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. there was a cool changing of the guard ceremony. it was really long and i liked watching the dudes click their shoes but the rifles freaked me out. they swung them around and i thought each time “i’m gonna get shot”

stop 5: Arlington House. under construction so we didn’t get off the tram.

stop 6: Iwo Jima Memorial. that statue is giant! it seems like it would be life size in photos but it had to have been 30 feet tall.

i almost had a hypoglycemic episode but i had glucose tablets on me and my mom let me have some cashews from her bag.

when we left we took the metro back and then stopped at a restaurant called falafel express and oh my god. the best falafel i’ve ever had.

i got 2 orders of it to go alongside the bowl i had there because it was so amazing. i plan on having more falafel for dinner.

now we’re back at the house and i don’t have plans for the rest of the night. i’ll insert an edit if anything remarkable happens