Home for the Holidays!

Hello! Your faithful blogger Julia here! Freshly back from a trip home to Maryland. Being there made me really appreciate some of the things I had been missing about home, but also made me realize how great a city Portland is too!

Suburban Maryland is all about driving, driving, driving. You have to drive everywhere. In Portland, I walk everywhere. Or take the bus or the streetcar. However, D.C. is truly a more happenin' city than Portland. In Portland, you can walk for blocks and not see anyone, but in D.C., there seems to be an adventure around every corner. There is pretty delicious food in both MD/D.C. and in Portland, but the best food is in NYC and Vancouver, BC. (and at Trader Joes.) (And of course my parents' kitchen :))

I could go on and on. I love thinking and talking about the similarities and differences between cities and towns. If you do too, we should chat.

But now is not the time for rambling; now is the time for a pictorial journey of my visit to MD and D.C.!

First stop was home. Luke and Nuffy were cuddling quite frequently:









Luke and I worked very hard wrapping the gifts in the background of this next photo. They were our Christmas masterpieces:












Last Friday, Rebecca and I went touring around D.C. for the day. On our way to the U.S. Botannical Garden, we saw a sign for tours of the radio program "Voice of America." We went to the noon tour and we had headsets and got to see a live TV and a live radio broadcast. It was very fun, although I'm sure they didn't tell us the whole story. The tour information was pretty watered down, and afterwards Rebecca was explaining the distinctions between government owned and privately owned media outlets. We can't hear Voice of America in the U.S. because it is owned by the government. While I'm sure that is a good thing in some ways (our news isn't spoon-fed us by our government) another part of me is curious what our government is telling everyone overseas...

The Botannical Garden had the coolest exhibit. A company in Alexandria, KY created these scale models of the buildings on the national mall. They are made out of plant material like cinnamon sticks and moss and even a gourd for the top of the Jefferson memorial!!!

U.S. Capitol:









Jefferson Memorial:









After a tasty vegetarian lunch at Java Green, we made a wonderful stop to the National Zoo! Tai Shan was our first destination:









But we were most captivated by the Asian Short Clawed Otters:









There were 6 of them, and they followed each other around their enclosure, making little squeeky sounds and being generally adorable. The next day, they were on the front page of the Washington Post Metro section, and there was a feature about how they wanted a double decker slide for Christmas. Rebecca says she's on the job.









It seemed way too soon for us to head back to Portland, but I had a fabulous New Years Eve, first at Rebecca's awesome party, then playing trivia at Dan's friend's house in Columbia. Here's me and mommy before the evening's festivities:









Happy New Year to all, and to all a goodnight!