museum weekend

One of our favorite pastimes is going to museums. Admission is free to most of them and there is a wide variety to choose from.

On Saturday, we visited the National Museum of the American Indian.

I bought some Native American Herbal Tea from the gift shop (Victory Tea and Warrior's Brew). It smells heavenly.

On Sunday, we visited the Newseum, which was absolutely fascinating. The ticket costs 25$ (approximately) and it is valid for two days, as the museum is huge and there's an infinite number of things to see. Some of the exhibits were so absorbing that I didn't take any pictures. (The same thing happened to me at the National Museum of American History some weeks ago; that's why you never saw a related post.)

 

 

The Berlin Wall

 

"The exhibit contains the largest display of unaltered portions of the original wall outside of Germany. It features eight 12-foot-high concrete sections of wall, each weighing about three tons. A three-story East German guard tower that loomed near Checkpoint Charlie — Berlin's best-known East-West crossing — stands nearby." 

(from the original website)


The First Amendment

Great Books

9/11

Freedom of the Press

 

This may be of interest to Greek readers. The Greek press is now considered partly free; the pictures on your right explain why. 

Museums are wonderful because there is something to learn everywhere you look. I'm looking forward to the next museum weekend.

dawn

Have an amazing Sunday!  

 sunrise, May 17th

Strathmore

Yesterday evening, we visited the 29th Biennial Exhibition of the Creative Crafts Council. All of the exhibits were very interesting, but I must admit I was taken aback by their prices. What I really enjoyed, though, was the place where the exhibition is held: the Mansion at Strathmore. 

It's hard for me to believe one can find such beauty within the urban landscape.

I loved the gazebo (or pavilion, I'm not sure what the difference between the two is). The setting sun was the perfect ornament for this elegant structure.

When it's not cloudy here, the sky is always stunning at dusk.

The Great Gatsby (2013)

Rarely do I get the urge to applaud when a movie ends (sometimes I don't even want to applaud after a live performance, but that's another story). As a matter of fact, I don't really remember the last time I felt so elated at a movie theater.

These are the reasons why I was blown away by Baz Luhrmann's rendition of The Great Gatsby.

1. The surprising beginning: The director had an amazing idea regarding the role of the narrator. Nick Carraway doesn't just do a voice-over, he narrates the story to someone. I'm not going to reveal the secret because I want you to be as surprised as I was when you watch the film.

2. 3D: I've been disappointed by 3D "effects" in the past, so I was a little reluctant to pay the extra money this time. However, I was curious about how a 1925 novel could stand as a 3D movie, when all we usually get in 3D is science-fiction/fantasy. It was breathtaking! I felt as if I were one of Gatsby's guests; I was on the verge of extending my hand to grab a drink: 

"The bar is in full swing and floating rounds of cocktails permeate the
garden outside until the air is alive with chatter and laughter and
casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot and
enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other's names."

3.  The soundtrack: Another brilliant idea here. The choice of contemporary music to accompany an 88-year-old plot. It couldn't have been done any better. The party scenes were so vibrant, that I wanted to dance and believe me, I'm neither a party girl nor a dance enthusiast. That's why I think the movie was so successful; because it made me want to plunge into the screen and become part of it.

 I especially enjoyed Lana Del Rey and Florence+The Machine, as well as Emeli Sande's version of Beyonce's Crazy in Love.

 

"By seven o'clock the orchestra has arrived, no thin five-piece affair, but a whole pitful of oboes and trombones and saxophones and viols and cornets and piccolos, and low and high drums."

4. Leonardo Di Caprio:

via

Infinite talent, unfathomable charm. He is THE BEST! He has never disappointed me and I knew he would be a... great Gatsby. His performance was heartbreaking.

(Titanic obsession: he reminded me of Jack Dawson in two scenes, his blonde hair, the tuxedo... now I want to watch Titanic again.)

 "He smiled understandingly-much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced-or seemed to face-the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey. Precisely at that point it vanished-and I was looking at an elegant young rough-neck, a year or two over thirty, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd. Some time before he introduced himself I'd got a strong impression that he was picking his words with care."

5. The magic: I remember when we were analyzing the actual novel as part of an American literature course at university, a guest lecturer had told us that when it comes to Gatsby, everything is magic. Baz Luhrmann managed to successfully convey the magic. Has it ever happened to you to like a movie so much that it stays with you for days after you leave the theater? The Great Gatsby is this kind of film.

The quotes are from the original novel The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald, which is available here.

prolixity (part 2)

Hello everyone! This is me being prolix, again.

television

We now have cable at home which means I have to make an effort not to spend the entire day watching TV. One of the shows I discovered here is The Colbert Report; funny and witty (most of the times).

root beer

Last Wednesday I felt like beer and chips. We headed out at 9.15 pm and both liquor stores nearby were closed (haha). Anyway, we went to the grocery store for the chips and decided to explore the soft drinks aisle where we saw six-packs of root beer (non-alcoholic, of course). I had heard of it before but never tried it, so having Stephen King's description in 11/22/63* (a book I never managed to finish reading) in mind, I went for it.

  

*"I sipped through the foam on top, and was amazed. It was... full. Tasty all the way through. I don't know how to express it any better than that."

Well, in my opinion, it tasted like weak mouthwash or kids' toothpaste. And I don't know how to express it any better than that either.

journey to the center of the earth 

 

 Some metro stations seem to be too close to the Earth's inner core. Getting used to it.

waiting for Mr. Gatsby

Back when I was a university student, we had to read a lot of literary works as well as the critical analysis that accompanied them. The process was traumatizing for me because I hate analyzing literature and trying to guess why the author/poet put a string of words together in one way rather than another. However, I had great fun when we focused on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. I remember our professor had invited an American professor for a guest lecture and the latter was so passionate about this novel, it was contagious.

Some years later, I watched The Great Gatsby (1974) and it was all I wanted it to be. Robert Redford was amazing.

So, now, I'm looking forward to seeing Leonardo Di Caprio (whom, as many of you probably know, I have a perennial crush on) embody this legendary character. The trailers have intrigued me. Will the '20s atmosphere, 3D effects and contemporary music be combined successfully? I can't wait to find out. 

Last Friday, walking around in Bethesda, looking for a place to have dinner, my eye caught a sign that advertized "mint julep". I thought they were catching up on the Gatsby hype and I was excited. (It turned out the hype was about the Kentucky Derby (hahaha naive Evi) , but I found out about that the next day, so my Gatsbian mood wasn't spoiled).  

a charmingly old-fashioned dessert and my mint julep in the background (picture taken here)

baker's ammonia

Greek Easter was on Sunday and we had two invitations for lunch/dinner. I thought that it would be a good idea to make some traditional koulouria (cookies) the way they make them in my hometown. The recipe required baker's ammonia which was only available online, as it is here considered "a predecessor to baking powder" and "a leavening agent that was used during the first part of the 20th century" (this made me laugh as it's still used in Greece). After a brief online search, I decided to use a combination of baking powder and baking soda as a substitute for the ammonia. Bad call. The first batch was more bitter than I could ever imagine, so the remaining dough went straight to the garbage bag. :(

That's pretty much all that happened last week. 

Looking forward to seeing you in the comment section! :)