Playing Tour Guide

 Alexis and I met up at the South Capitol Metro (she's getting around fine on her own!) and walked to the Cannon Building to meet Logan for a tour of the Capitol.  It got put together at the last minute but worked out because this is Logan's last week in DC and Congressman Stewart is back in Utah so the office was slow.  We got our own personal tour!

 Because this bldg is closer to the capitol we walked through the underground tunnel.  If you come from the senate offices you take a little shuttle cart.

 Each state gets two statues of prominent people in the Capitol.  These are Utah's two representatives.  Know who they are?  Brigham Young and Philo T. Farnsworth.

 Logan and Alexis (both smarties) had many great conversations about all kinds of things as we toured. This is the Visitor's Center and below is the cast for the Statue of Freedom that is on top of the capitol.

The original Supreme Court

 They're doing a lot of repairs in the halls and we caught one artist doing some work.......

This is where the appropriations committee still meets.  Gorgeous!  I'd have a hard time concentrating with so much beauty surrounding me.

 Two different busts of Lincoln.  The first when he was a young legislator and the second after he had been serving as president.  That job definitely ages you.......

 We got to come out on the balcony that overlooks the National mall.  Right down below is where the inauguration ceremony takes place.

The Ceiling of the Rotunda

The original senate chambers

Normally we'd get to see the current chambers of both the house and senate but they're re-weaving the carpets and won't allow anyone in.  Our tour took about an hour then we headed out of the back of the capitol.  From there you have the....

Library of Congress

Supreme Court

They're refurbishing the Supreme Court so they still have the faux drape on the front of it.  

 We opted to go peek inside the Library of Congress.  Alexis was pretty consistently having her breath taken away by the architecture.  So fun to show her around!

This is looking over the main reading room

 It's fun being a tour guide!  We headed back to our apartment for a little snack and so Alexis could meet Tom  In our orientation for this program we were told 80% of international students leave the US without ever having seen the inside of an American home so they encouraged us to have our student over.  We visited awhile then picked up Logan when he got off work for a run to Costco.  He needed to refill some things at the home he's been staying in and I thought it might be interesting for Alexis to see what American warehouse shopping is all about it. We also introduced her to the awesome Costco hotdog!

American Friend

 So I signed up to participate in a program through Chi Alpha Ministries at Georgetown University to be a friend to an incoming grad student through this school year.  They paired me up with Ruo Shuang Lim (Chinese name) but her American name is Alexis.  We emailed back and forth for a week before she arrived then I got to meet her in person yesterday!

Teri and Alexis in "Selfie"

 She's 23 years old, from Singapore and is here to study public policy.  She's on a govt. scholarship so her country pays for her schooling for 2 years then she is required to go back and work for them for 5 years.

I met up with her at the Metro in DuPont Circle which is near her student hostel where she'll be living.  I taught her how to use the Metro (she was a quick study!) and we headed to Union Station.  She was very taken by the beauty of the place.  Then we walked over to the Capitol and again she was in awe over how gorgeous it is.  Hoping to get her in to a tour before she gets crazy busy with school.  We spent the next few hours walking down the National Mall, explaining how it's NOT a shopping mall, took a quick peek inside the Natural History Museum as she said she loved Night at the Museum, did another Metro hop to a REAL shopping mall at Fashion Centre in Pentagon City, back on the Metro to Columbia Heights and introduced her to Bed, Bath and Beyond & Target for shopping, then back to the Metro and DuPont Circle.  Phew! Oh, and she asked what was considered the most American type food.  I thought perhaps a hamburger, fries and a soda so THAT is what she wanted for lunch.  Johnny Rockets was right there so she had her first burger in America complete with swiss cheese and sautéed mushrooms.  The Route 66 it was called.  We had to take a photo as her dad is afraid of the food she is going to have to eat in the states!

She was mesmerized by all the squirrels and birds and how they're not afraid of people.  She was frustrated by our standards of measurement as she was trying to compute what she needs for school and a couple of things for her room.  "Why don't you use the metric system like the rest of the world?" she asked.  Hmmm.  Not sure except that at one point when my kids were in school they SAID they were going to start teaching metrics but it didn't last long.  She asks lots of interesting questions. We talked about what she should expect things to cost. Like movies or a dress. Should she use the term black or African-American. How she should respond when people say "Hello, how are you?".  She's very smart, speaks great English and is very funny.  It will be easy to be her friend.

 Today, we met again at DuPont as we found that Georgetown University has a FREE shuttle that runs every 10 minutes or so right close from the Metro and will take her to campus.  So we decided to try it out before she starts school on Monday.  We met up with my friend Kristin and HER American friend from China named Michelle.

 Michelle and Alexis became fast friends.  They'll be in the same department, both studying the same thing and they can speak Chinese with each other.  Alexis said she speaks at about a 70% level of Chinese (this is what her Father speaks) and 70% of English (which her mother speaks) but fears she's not 100% at either.  But a professor in Beijing told her that if that's true she's actually speaking at 140% which makes her better than most people!  I thought that was a cute story.

 We took a tour of the campus that was mostly geared to incoming freshmen and their parents but it gave both girls a chance for a foundation of where things are.

 They'll get another orientation through the Intercultural organization on campus and one that's specifically for grad students.  After the tour we had lunch at a great buffet on campus called Epicurean.  Really good food!  Another girl that Michelle had met named Anna, joined us for lunch.  She's from the UK, did her undergrad at Cambridge and is on a Fulbright Scholarship to Georgetown.  Darling girl as well.  And clearly, a smart one.  I think it's going to be a great year!

Kristin, Michelle, Alexis and me!

 Oh yeah, and another Selfie!  Who knew this sort of pix had it's own name?  Good thing I'm hanging with young people!

Ready, Set, Tri!

Vince, Tom and Kristen...pre-race

 So the big day finally arrived.  I was very anxious all week and didn't sleep great, but once we got there, I was fine.  It was a place called Pohick Bay about 25 miles out of DC.  This was a training tri put on by the DC Triathlon organization so it was pretty laid back.  Usually there are bike stands for you to set up your transition area but for this, it was just a field of grass.

 All the fancy road bikes don't have kickstands so Tom was going to get the benefit of having my big ol' mountain bike standing up to lead him to his when he came running from the water.  I don't have the fancy shmancy clip on shoes either so I didn't have to switch shoes three times! My running shoes are my biking shoes.

So we set up our transition area.  This is where you come after the swim, switch to bike shoes with helmet, and anything else you need to put on.....then at the end of the bike ride you come back again to drop off said bike, ditch helmet, grab any energy goodies, switch to running shoes and you're back on the road.  Then we headed down to the water to sign in and get our body markings.  

Me...snapping a photo of my body marking

The water was very icky looking.  It's a bay that comes off the Potomac and had lots of greenery in it.  Not moss, but bright green weeds.  We had a very late start as they were waiting for the tide to clear the water some but we still had to walk out past the dock through the grass/weeds about 100m to get to some clearer waters.  From there, we waited for the horn to start our wave.  I was in the 34+ age group wave. Did I mention that Tom and I were the oldest participants?

So there were buoys set up where those triangles are and we swam around those.  I am not a fast swimmer so I just go slow and steady.  Felt really comfortable the whole time.  Apparently some people freak out in the open water.  Tom's eyes are not great and he had a hard time seeing the buoys so he lost  his way some.  This side of the bay is Virginia and across the water was Maryland.

So we had to run an extra quarter mile from the water up to the transition area.  Hopped on my bike and took off.  Had never tried the GU energy gels before and our coach, Vince had said they can sometimes make you sick to your stomach.  I had just been using a different type of energy waffle cookie.  I rode a bit then decided to try the vanilla GU I had in my pack.  Tasted like vanilla pudding and I drank plenty of water because he said that helped.  Came to a big hill and just hit a wall.  Had to get off my bike and walk it up the hill, then got back on and felt fine for about 3 minutes then threw up the GU.  Yeah, too much info but fortunately could just spit out onto the field to my right without stopping and immediately felt better.  Good lesson.  Don't try out new energy products during a race!  So I'm riding along and suddenly Tom comes up BEHIND me!  Had no idea I was ahead of him....not realizing how he had struggled in the water.  He apologized for passing me but said I might very well be the only person he beats in this race!  I got to the turn around spot at the school and headed back toward transition and after a bit Tom came up behind me AGAIN!  He had gone past the turnaround point and did an extra 4 miles on the bike ride.  Sheesh!  Apparently the volunteers stationed there didn't signal him in, they just kind of waved when he went by.  Brother.

 I couldn't imagine being able to do another 3.1 miles of running when I dropped my bike off...especially since there were a good portion of participants already completely finished with the Tri but I carried on.  Had to walk quite a bit but the volunteers were awesome and cheering me on as I was bringing up the rear of the racers.  Got to the finish line and Tom was waiting with the camera.

 Vince and Kristen also participated in the race and finished in enough time to change, eat and cheer me on!  Kristen was actually the very first person out of the water but she got lost on the bike ride too!  We joined the others for a bbq though I really wasn't up for much food.  Felt great to have finished though and definitely happy that I did it.  I don't see myself ever being a fast participant but slow and steady gets 'er done!