The Newseum, the sculpture garden, and a chance encounter

Today, one of the press staffers and I took a German exchange student to meet Grassley right outside the Senate floor. It was a pretty standard meet-and-greet. They talked, I took pictures of varying quality. After that, the Senator left for a meeting, and we took the student back to the office to set up a tour. The front area of the office has a bunch of chairs for people to sit in while waiting to meet with Grassley. I walked past the chairs, and briefly glanced at the people sitting in them before heading through the door towards the press office.

Once the door closed behind me, my mind caught up with my glance, and I thought,

Did I just walk past Professor Jansen?

I turned around, went back out the door, and sure enough: Abby Jansen, a social work prof from Dordt was sitting there - as was Laura MacMillan.

She was just as shocked to see me, I think. I guess we never talked about our summer plans at school. She didn't know I was interning with Grassley, and I didn't know she was lobbying with Bread for the World - which is why she and Professor Jansen were visiting Grassley. I couldn't talk very long, but it was super-cool to see them, and I hope their lobbying went well.

On Sunday, I went to the Newseum with Abhay and his girlfriend (who was in town for the weekend.) It was the same day as a gay pride festival, which was conveniently held on the road in front of the Newseum. And Abhay and his lady-friend were conveniently late.

Long story short: I got hit on. Short story long: I don't want to talk about it, OK?

But the Newseum was really cool. (See pictures below.) The coolest thing there was a section of the actual Berlin Wall. It gave me goosebumps, thinking about the people who built it, the people who climbed over it, and the people who knocked it down. If someone had told Reagan when he gave his "Tear down this wall!" speech that within twenty years, the wall would be on display in an American museum, would he have believed them? The liberation of Eastern Europe has got to be one of history's most amazing events.

View from the Newseum balcony, overlooking Pennsylvania Avenue:


National Gallery of Art (West Wing):




National Gallery of Art:

Capitol Building, plus gay pride:

Smithsonian Castle:

Inside:

The west side of the Berlin Wall:

The east side of the Berlin Wall (painted white by the communists to make it easier to spot escapees):




A Berlin Wall guard tower:



A barricade:

A sign from the post-WWII occupation:

A statue of V. I. Lenin, decapitated after the Cold War:

Part of the World Trade Center:





Rubble from the Pentagon:

Actual September 12 headline of the San Francisco Examiner:

A VERY old license plate:

Another picture from the same exhibit. We should do this at Dordt sometime:


Post-Apartheid South African voting box:





Daniel Pearl's laptop (Pearl was beheaded by terrorists in Pakistan in 2002):

Now that's what I'm talking about:

Voting ballot from the 2000 Florida election:

And, at the sculpture garden. You artsy Dordt people (you know who you are) should like this.

My favorite:




Really?

"The Thinker":

Playing chess:

Coming up: Scott McClellan's House Intelligence Committee testimony on Friday. Abhay and I are going. Should be interesting, to say the least.