Spring Break: Maryland

The rain we endured whiled exploring Washington D.C. finally stopped when we woke up the next morning. Unfortunately, we slept in (catching up on some well-needed sleep) and did not make it back to the Smithsonian to find the Colbert painting at the Portrait Gallery. We did walk down to a restaurant called GrillFish, which turned out to be an excellent choice. Before deciding on GrillFish, we considered eating at several other places we passed on the way. But my outfit choice of jeans and Justin's cargo pants seemed like inappropriate dress attire. Never in our lives have we felt so underdressed . The entire city is walking around in suits, ties, skirts, jackets and dress shoes.

We picked up our luggage after lunch and headed towards the Metro. The Metro stops here in D.C. are not as frequent as the subway stations in NYC, so we walked a good half mile before finding a Metro station. Although New York City's subway system seems more convenient, the Metro stations in D.C. are much nicer and the subway itself seems cleaner. We made our way to Maryland and after a shuttle ride after the Metro we made it on the University of Maryland's campus. We later found out on the news that the red line metro that we had taken derailed no more than an hour after we had taken it. Scary.

The buildings on campus are beautiful and historic but it seems really spread out. I followed Justin to a reception dinner for the Physics Department's open house. Justin mingled with other prospective grad students, current grad students and professors. I stood by his side, and introduced myself as "i'm with him" while pointing to Justin when people walked up searching for my name tag. I continued to politely smile, nod my head and screamed inside from my aching feet. Because we never had time to break away from conversations, Justin and I never really had the chance to eat any real food. We just continued to stuff ourselves with cheese and pita chips. The reception was too much physics/physics program/physics interest talk for me and I am happy to be sitting in the hotel room blogging and looking around at the things I am supposed to be doing while Justin is gone for the day.