Written by: Susan

August 11, 2008 

Why do you always want what you haven't got?

It's scary how fast you can really step back into life here in the states. I've been wanting to read the article in the current Vanity Fair magazine about Carla Bruni, the new first lady of France. As we were traveling, I found ways to seek information like this for free since access to it was really expensive (Vanity Fair would have been upwards of $15). Now that I'm back in the states, I completely forgot that you can actually just go to vanityfair.com and just read the article for free. I've been debating about whether or not to get the magazine, should I subscribe to it? etc, etc......until tonight when suddenly I remembered that I could access it online and will be enjoying the article from the leisure of my own home....for free.

Which brings me to my point.....why does the grass always seem greener? I remember while traveling, I'd think of all the fun stores that I'd get to go to when I went home, all the foods I'd be able to eat, the familiarty of everything. Now that I'm home, do you think I've actually gone to any of the places that I was DYING to go to while traveling? I haven't even stepped foot into the Seattle Patagonia or REI store downtown and those were always a part of my weekend routine.  

Did I just enjoy the idea of them more than the reality? Why is the idea of something sometimes so much more colorful? Is it because you can mold it to your happier moments and forget how much of a pain it really is to drive to some of these places, find parking, and walk around a store that beckons you to spend hundreds of dollars?

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Wednesday, July 30 2008

Written by: Our nephew Bryan

Day 2:

Today was a good day but not as good as yesterday.

Well today we went to the Air and Space Museum which has planes and space shuttles basically like a airport hanger with some of the best and fastest planes in the world.

There were three things I really enjoyed today. First was the space shuttle. I liked seeing this because it was not a shuttle that flew into space but a training shuttle to help them get ready for the real thing and let me tell you it was huge.

Next was seeing the fastest airplane ever, the SR-71 Blackbird. This plane went from California to New York in 68 minutes and 17 seconds.

Last was the flight simulator that was a little machine that we sat in. I got to go twice first with Uncle B then Aunt Susan. They flew and i was the gunner and the goal was to go and shoot all enemy airplanes. The first time I went with Uncle B I got 8 kills. But when I went with Aunt Susan we got 1 kill, which was not her fault because the simulator went upside down and so her dress and hair got in the way but I did not care because it was fun.

After the museum we went to where the first battle of the civil war was held and it is called Bull Run. Here we got to see Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson who was the leader of he South and got his name by standing strong when the North charged at them and I thought it was really cool to see his statue because I knew a lot about him from school.

This is all we did today but tomorrow will be awesome because we get to go see the spy and museum so I will send an email tomorrow.

Day 3:

July 7, 2007

Today was one of the best days so far.

Well to start the day Aunt Susan made french toast which was awesome. Then, I got dressed and we went to the spy museum. At the museum we did a mission like a spy and it felt like I was actually playing a game as a spy. I was the one left in charge to scan the documents and get the information and I did good and found everything  needed and we beat the mission and our tour guide was really HOT. There was also a museum of the spy gadgets which was awesome. But the mission was the best.

Then we went to the National Archives which holds the Constitution, Bill Of Rights, and Declaration of Independence. I was very pleased to see the Emancipation Proclamation because this is the 5 minute speech from Abraham Lincoln that ended slavery which was my favorite subject in history.

Last we saw the Jefferson Memorial which was obviously based on Thomas Jefferson our second president of the United States. There is a couple differences between the Lincoln and Jefferson memorial. One is Lincoln is square where Jefferson is circled at the top. Second, the Jefferson is sinking and the Lincoln memorial is not in water so it is not. Lastly, Lincoln is sitting and and Jefferson is standing.

This is what we did today so it was a good day.

Day 4:

Hello, today was a great day.

Well we started by going to George Washington's house. We got to learn about his slaves and got to see his amazing house which was huge.

The slave tour told us where the slaves worked and where they lived and what they did where they worked and how they did it. The house tour was we got to see all rooms in the house and we also got to see where he did his work and many other things.

Tonight was the best of the day I got to see the White House at lit up at night. We got to see a air force 1 helicopter  practicing to drop President Bush off when he gets back from the G8Summit. We also got to see the Washington monument which was really really cool.

Day 5:

Today was another great day.

First we had to get up at 7am and go to get tickets for the Washington Monument and to see where our nations money is made. Well me and Uncle B stayed in line for the monument and Aunt Susan stayed in the money engraving line.

The Bureau of Engraving is a place where we went first and it was awesome I got to see where our money is made and I got a sheet of 16 one dollar bills not cut which is so awesome, the bills look so new its amazing .

Second we went to the Holocaust Museum which showed what the Jews had gone through and it was cool at the same time but so depressing too. It was cool because |I got to learn so much on what they had to go through and also lean about Hitler. It was depressing because it showed what happened to them and what they did when they died and how they starved them and it was just really sad.

And last we finally got to go to the Washington Monument and it was just amazing to see all of the buildings in D.C.

Well tomorrow we start to go to New York, which is going to be great so ya. I Love You an Miss You

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Sunday, July 27, 2008

Written by: Brian and Bryan's(my nephew) emails (part 1)

Quick Recap to D.C.

The trip to DC was great but it was more personal for us seeing our friends and family.

Here is a bullet list of what we did leading up to our arrival in Washington D.C.

-The drive through Moab, Utah and Arches National Park was beautiful

-Arrived in Denver and had wedding reception hosted by our friends Jan and Len. THANK YOU!

-Bryan and I hiked to over 12,000 feet at Rocky Mountain National Park

-18 hour drive from Denver to Chicago was grueling, Nebraska is truly a boring state

-Spent 3 days catching up with my grandma in Chicago

-My mom had a wedding reception for us in Sandwich, IL and made some great traditional Polish food. Thanks!

-Drove down to Atlanta through the beautiful Smokey Mountains

-Spent 3 days with my cousin Keith and his wonderful family

-Headed to Washington D.C. on July 4th

The Capitol:

We arrived at our friends house outside of DC around 5:00 on July 4th and had a nice barbecue. That evening we headed into the city to see the most amazing display of fireworks I had ever seen. We headed home for some much needed sleep, tomorrow was the start of our Washington D.C. site seeing tour.

Taxation without Representation, the phrase that led to the revolutionary war and ultimately to independence of America. So it seems a little strange when the first day in Washington D.C. (from now on D.C.) I see the license plate motto“Taxation without Representation” on all the cars in D.C.

Dan, our friend that we were staying with in D.C. and resident expert on most historical matters informed us of the history of the motto. Washington D.C. is not a state but a district of the Untied States that house all three Federal branches of the Federal government. It has a population of around 600,000 thousand people but they have no representation in the Senate and they have a non-voting member in the House of Representatives. The residents of D.C. did not even have voting rights until 1961 when the 23 amendment gave them 3 electoral votes.

The reason for our trip across the country was to take my 14 year old nephew, Bryan, to see the nations capitol of which he had just completed his 8th grade studies on. It was one of his dreams to see Washington D.C. and we thought it would be a great educational opportunity. Please enjoy his emails home each day reflecting on the days activities.

Day 1: Today has been a great day. I went and saw 4 things except one of them did not work out.

First we went to go see Fords theater where Abraham Lincoln was assassinated which was like my #1 thing to see except it was closed which really stunk but it was ok. It will not open until 2009.

Next we went to go see the Library of Congress which had every book ever published in the world and also we saw the library of Thomas Jefferson which was really big.

Third we went to see the Lincoln Memorial which was fantastic because i got to see where Forest Gump gave his speech and ran through the reflecting pool which was really cool.

Last we went to see the Vietnam Memorial which was fascinating to learn about and also made me think of grandpa (who was in Vietnam)

Stay tuned for part two of our 5 day trip to D.C. 

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It’s day 2 of being back in Seattle. Reality sunk in when we arrived on Monday night at my mom’s house. We literally weren’t sure what to do with ourselves. I’m not sure if it’s from having a lack of things to do after being on the go for so long or having too many things (admittedly not as exciting as traveling) to do and therefore, we sat that night like two bumps on a log.

The feeling of being like “fish out of water” was exacerbated by the fact that we have way too much stuff. It was overwhelming. Stuff that we had left at my mom’s house prior to leaving on our trip, stuff that I had lugged back to Seattle when we first arrived back in the States, and all the stuff that we had driven all the way from Chicago with that packed our Prius to the max. What is all this stuff??? Some of it warrants being sent straight to the garbage can, but others keep conjuring up the questions “what if?” I believe this question alone is the reason why America has so much stuff.

Not only do we have tons of stuff, we seem to currently have all the wrong stuff. Like an inflatable mattress. It’s things like that that people don’t think of before going on an around the world trip. Where are we going to sleep? I have a twin bed in my old bedroom so for the first two nights, I slept on the twin and Brian slept on the floor atop our featherbed that we were able to wrangle out of one of the garbage bags we had hastily stuffed it into 16 months ago.  

We have an inflatable mattress but of course, we have no clue where it is. All of our boxes are neatly stacked downstairs in the basement and there is no way we’ll be going through any of those. So like good American consumers who are too lazy to go through 50 boxes of stuff, we decide to go to Costco and purchase a new Aero bed. It was actually a good purchase as it blows up to the size of a real bed and has proven to be much more comfortable than our small, floor inflatable.

So currently we’re looking for jobs. Since we don’t have internet (we’ll be getting it Monday), looking for jobs requires us to drive all the way into Seattle (about 20 minutes) to an internet café to begin the search. We’ve dedicated ourselves to applying for 1 job a day and surfing various sites to look for jobs.

Our daily routine looks like this:

Wake up

Walk over stuff

Drink tea, eat humbows that my mom steamed for us

Organize stuff

Shower

Organize more stuff

Plan day

Discuss what to do with organized stuff

Leave house

Surf internet for jobs

Go home, walk over stuff, go to sleep

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