This shot was taken last Thursday morning, as DC awoke to its first real snowfall of the year. That friend who told me DC winters consist entirely of "39-degree rainstorms"? Yeah, he moved out of town this summer.

I took a wander this week around my new neighborhood. Lo and behold, autumn has (finally!) decided to make an appearance in DC, and I figured I should enjoy it while it lasts.

The wander began here:



...since I now live across the street. (That's the National Cathedral, in case you've never visited. It's gorgeous at sunset - this picture was taken just as the light was getting low.)

Then I cut through the grounds of St. Alban's School to find the pumpkin patch I've been ogling from the bus windows every day on my commute:





By the time I was ready to head home, the light was getting really dim, but I managed to capture this little guy, lying forlornly on the grass. We still don't really have much foliage to speak of, but there are bright red and yellow trees here and there, harbingers of the (hopefully bright) autumn that's well on its way.



Happy fall!

I promised pictures and possibly stories from Minnesota, but I have a tiny little confession to make: I forgot to pack my camera. This seems difficult to do, since it's a fairly large DSLR that I usually travel with over my shoulder (rather than in my luggage) - but then again, it's actually pretty easy to forget to sling it over my shoulder and by the time I got to the airport, it was too late to go back.

So I'll just tell you that Minneapolis looked a lot like this:


Except that we weren't on a lake (just near several of them) and we spent a lot of time indoors, baking scones and watching movies. But you get the idea.

If you're ever in Minneapolis, I could steer you to a fun new/used bookstore and a coffee shop with really, really good iced tea, but the most I actually saw of the lakes was from the window of the plane.

Come to think of it, though, that was a pretty sweet way to see Minnesota. I'd highly recommend a window seat. ;)

Nothing much new in DC this August. This month marks my one-year anniversary of arriving here, and it feels much like it did last year - hot, humid, vaguely political. I've been staying busy but not doing anything too exciting.

But all of that changes come tomorrow - I'm flying to Minnesota to visit a former college roommate! (Her name is Karen; she owns a brownie pan that only makes edge brownies and she shares my deep and undying love of tea.) We plan to chill out, hunt moose, and make lots of delicious pancakes. (Minus the moose-hunting. There will be no moose-hunting. That was a lie.)

Pictures and stories to come! Or at least pictures. I'm not sure "we made pancakes and then watched movies all day" counts as an actual story...

More pictures and stories to come about my first Independence Day celebration in the nation's capital, but suffice to say, it was memorable.


Hope you enjoyed the Fourth, wherever you found yourselves!

One of the DC heat-beating adventures we discovered last weekend was a water taxi from Alexandria to Georgetown.

To begin the afternoon, we took the metro to King Street, ambled the 1.5 miles to the waterfront past shops, cafes and restaurants, and then hung out at the pier for a while, enjoying the cool breeze and the abundance of shade.

From there, we had the sharp idea to head back to DC via boat, hoping it would be cooler on the water (it was, slightly) and that it might be fun to see the usual sites from the upper deck of a boat (understatement! It was nifty!)

The best part was that I had a sweet new 55-250mm telephoto zoom lens to try out, so I spent the ride alternating between photographing monuments and buildings on the shoreline (which I would never have been able to capture with my old 18-55mm lens) and shooting close-ups of the boats in the water around us (and the occasional commercial airliner), just because I could:


Can you guess what the following buildings are? (Hint: they're both in the District of Columbia, on the east bank of the Potomac. One of them is full of classified materials and the other once played host to a huge national scandal...)

I like to think of DC summers as one long adventure... a la Indiana Jones; the kind of adventure that sneaks up behind you and pulls out a machete. It inevitably seems like one minute, I'm walking to the nearest metro stop and the next, I'm outrunning mosquitoes the size of my eyeballs and calculating how much time I can spend in the sun before my internal organs start melting.

Nonetheless, I had friendly visitors from NH this past weekend, so - swampy summer heat or no - we thought we'd come up with something a little more adventurous than "staying alive and avoiding the outdoors at all costs". So on Friday, we headed over to the Newseum to check out all of the exhibits they've put together to illustrate the history of American news outlets, the impact of the first amendment, and the challenges journalists face in trying to cover news stories.

If you make it to Washington at any point, you should definitely take some time to check out the Newseum - the $20 tickets last for two consecutive days, so either come early or be prepared to go back. There are a couple of exhibits you won't want to rush through. Our favorites were the eight sections of the Berlin wall on the concourse level, the collection of Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs and the stories behind them, and the Ground Zero news coverage exhibit and film. There's also a whole interactive area on the 2nd level, where we'd probably have spent a lot more time, had we brought small children (ok, ok, I snuck in and played the "Wanna Be A Photojournalist?" game and then sort of wanted to try it again... fifty times or so).


In a city where most of the museums are free (< 3 the Smithsonian), the Newseum is a pricey day's entertainment, but we thought it was well worth it. It is, after all, the only museum of its kind in the world. And besides, isn't that what visits from parents and aunts are for? (Thanks, fellow partners in crime DC explorers!)

Sorry for the radio silence around these parts. My trusty college laptop finally bit the dust a few weeks ago and I generally don't get time at work to post.

I also can't pull any of the photos off my external hard drive for your viewing pleasure (or to remind me what there is to write about, which is what photos generally do), but you should know that our 2+ feet of snow are totally gone, we've had a streak of 60+ degree days, and I give up on trying to understand DC weather. It's completely absurd.

Luckily, there are plans for a new, shiny laptop afoot, so hopefully I'll be able to post a little more regularly soon. Thanks for your patience!

We called December 19th's storm the "Snowpocalypse", as it dumped a nearly-unprecedented 16 inches of snow on the DC region and closed everything down for days.

It didn't even compare to this:


This photo was taken on Saturday morning, nearly twenty-four hours after the snow began but more than twelve hours before it stopped. All told, the storm dubbed "Snowmageddon" left us with nearly two feet of snow, shut down roads and above-ground metrorail services for days, disrupted schools, paralyzed the federal government, and generally created an atmosphere of congenial pandemonium throughout the greater DC area. (Metro finally got all of its stations open this afternoon at 2:30, only to close them again 6 hours later when the snow started up again...)

The name currently trending among DC twitter accounts for the storm that started this evening and is expected to continue all day tomorrow?

"Snowverkill"

We're slated to get 10-20 inches (although they've been scaling back those predictions) this time, which might be enough to crest DC past Syracuse, NY for the US city with the greatest snowfall thus far.

Did you catch that? A city with an average annual snowfall of about 13 inches has gotten well over five feet this winter, and is second only to Syracuse.

I asked a friend if he thought this was a sign that DC is where I am supposed to be at the moment in time. He paused and then said: "well, if it isn't a sign, I think someone's at least trying to make this an easy adjustment period."

My office follows the federal government schedule for weather-related closures, which means we closed at noon on Friday and have yet to re-open (fed is closed tomorrow as well and Thursday is looking dubious as long as metro is struggling to clear its tracks). I have been working from home, which means that I can simultaneously respond to e-mail, compile and translate flip charts for an upcoming training in Paraguay, and bake banana bread - all in my pajamas.

Happy snowverkill!

Here's an fascinating look at how rural microfinance networks were able to respond to post-earthquake needs in Haiti: "Haiti womens micro-lending bank brings big cash to rescue".


In other news, they correctly predicted about 4 inches of snow in DC this Saturday which is still on the ground; I am told that both of these things (snow actually falling and then sticking around) are nearly unprecedented for a DC winter and that this weather is baffling everyone.

Except me. YOU'RE NOT BAFFLING ME, DC. I'M ECSTATIC.

I was warned, when I arrived in DC, that "winter" was going to consist of a lot of 34-degree rain and slush. Buy a sturdy pair of rainboots, everyone said, and move on. Don't wish for snow.

Luckily, I ignored them all, bought a nice sturdy pair of snowboots, and was here to welcome the city's heaviest snowfall on record.

Beginning the night of December 18th, 2009 (Friday) and extending late into Saturday evening, DC experienced the worst blizzard this decade, chalking up more than eighteen inches of snow. The above-ground metro trains stopped running. Federal offices closed all day on Monday. And I loved every absurd, powdery minute of it.


Luckily (and despite the general sense of: "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!"), DC managed to keep major roads pretty clear. I got this shot Sunday afternoon while walking up Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Capitol:


People mostly stayed in on Saturday (as the mayor urged us Not To Leave Our Homes), but by Sunday were out and about, albeit cautiously and on foot. The weather was warm enough for some of the snow to have already melted.

But (clearly) on Saturday as the snow was falling, I geared up and went running as far as I could, just for the hell of it - stopping to play in the biggest drifts and half-sliding right down the middle of the still-powdery streets. Hey, if DC only offers me two days of unfettered, snow-slippery bliss this year, I want to have made the most of them.

And, besides - Washingtonians need to learn how it's done.

There will be many more pictures and stories to come about our New Year's celebrations in DC, but for now, you can at least rest assured that no matter how hard Anna, Natalie and Sutong tried to topple the Washington Monument, Brita's superpowers (and right index finger) were always there to save the day.


What does DC do without this girl when she's in Rhode Island?