Monumental Night Out
It’s real summer here in D.C.—crickets chirping, juicy watermelons, and humidity. I arrived in the U.S. yesterday morning. Before I knew it, I was out of the plane and waiting on the curb outside the airport. Hard to believe that less than 24 hours earlier I was in Cape Town. The night I got back to D.C., we drove around the city, into Dupont Circle and past most of the monuments.
After taking a few hours to recuperate from my flight, we got up and went to see the Brett Weston photo exhibition at the Philip’s Collection in Dupont Circle. According to the description at the beginning of the exhibition, Edward Weston, Brett’s famous father, got some of his inspiration from his son. His photographs play with seemingly infinite depth-of-field, and the gelatin silver print makes his grays vibrate.
In the evening, we went to see the 1812 Overture performed by the United States Army Band on the monument grounds. We spread our blanket below the Washington Monument and waited, as the sun went down, for the music to begin. Hundreds of people came with their fold-out chairs and picnic blankets to stake out a place before the music started. As the sun went down, my jet-lag really began to set in.