Archive for March 18th, 2010
Back in the Fall of ’09 we got word that the Terracotta Warriors were coming to town. And by town I mean 3 hours north of us in Washington, DC. Since we weren’t able to see them while we were in China (big country – way too much to pack into a short trip) we knew that a road trip was in order. Every so often I’d log on to the website to purchase tickets but I never bought them because we couldn’t quite agree on a convenient day or time – the holidays, my surgery, the horrendous weather all conspired against us – so it was pretty late in the game when I figured out that a)these were pretty hot tickets and were quickly selling out and that b)they were finishing up the exhibit in only a few short weeks.
Panic ensued and I bought 3 tickets for a middle of the week date/time. Fortunately it coincided with a teacher workday at her daycare so J and I just decided to make it a holiday for all of us. Our tickets were for 2PM so we didn’t have to be up at the crack of dawn and would have plenty of time to find parking and meander around DC for a little while.
The day started like this:
While she didn’t look terribly comfortable it must have been okay since she slept almost the entire 3 hours we were in the car. This was awesome since we knew that a midday nap was unlikely with all the activity going on.
Traffic was a bear, of course. It always is. Fortunately we got a bit of a boost by being able to utilize the HOV lane but then ended up being stuck right by DCA for a while. This quite possibly was Ava’s favorite part of the whole day since she could see airplanes – and point them out to us overandoverandoverandover again. Oh, and we saw a train too. It was at that point where she nearly passed out from excitement. We, on the other hand, were not so thrilled. Not sure what event, beyond the standard everyday protests, that brought out the hordes of tourists but the thought of mowing over a couple of them that didn’t seem to understand the placement of crosswalks was mighty tempting.
After J could drive no more without bringing on a major cardiac event he zipped into a parking garage that may or may not have been close to the museum. The draw, for him, was the Five Guys on the corner. Who cares if we have to walk 40 city blocks to get anywhere else? Fortification was near and it was almost lunchtime.
Except I, forgetting that my husband turns into a goblin if he goes for 10 minutes past lunchtime without food, convinced him that if we just walked a couple of blocks toward the mall we would be able to find better (for you) food than the fat and calorie laden burgers that Five Guys offers. So we walked. A lot. And we did not find food quickly. We found the White House (big deal – seen it a million times) and we found all the monuments (also big deal – been there done that) but we could not find a place to eat in the whole of Washington, DC that we could agree upon.
By this point we’re barely speaking, preferring instead to growl. The goblin is hungry, the kid is not yet able to facilitate communication between us when we don’t want to actually talk to each other, and so we end up in the food court of the Ronald Reagan building out of desperation. The food court, people. The food court in which we had to go through airport style security to enter. The security at which I had to be wanded, spread eagle style (no, not like THAT) before they would clear me to enter. It did wonders for the mood of the day, let me tell you. And after we finally made it in? The only one who ate was Ava after a screaming fit about not wanting to ride in her stroller (tough – she did anyway). Wanna guess where J and I ate? Yeah, that would be the Five Guys near the car.
I do own 93% of the responsibility for that fiasco, by the way.
Fortunately J and I don’t stay mad long so we dropped off the stroller and other stuff to make the 14-ish block hike to the museum. Seriously. And we did it with no stroller and a kid who alternated between wanting to run amok in the streets or suddenly deciding mid-intersection that she didn’t want to walk anymore therefore suddenly going all boneless and limp leaving J to drag her by her arm out of the road or to throw her onto his shoulders at which time she screamed like she was being kidnapped. Nice.
Now mind you, J and I had no idea what this museum looked like or where it was at all so we were somewhat surprised to come across a rather unassuming building with lines wrapped around it with people waiting to get in and ticket scalpers surreptitiously making deals. It was a bit surreal, honestly. Warriors = ancient rock stars. Who knew?
Did I mention it was like 50 ga-thousand degrees outside? Yep. And inside, too.
And honestly, my first thought after entering the exhibit was something along the lines of “Meh, this is it?”. There were some impressive bits of jewelry, weaponry, and decor along with some patched up warriors but I was expecting so much more.
Which I got as soon as we went into the second part of the exhibit. J and I tag teamed Ava so we each got some time to walk around and examine the warriors – so cool that there’s absolutely no way I can adequately describe it. Even though I’ve read about them and how detailed they were you just don’t get it until you see how perfectly formed these statues are. The details were amazing – belt buckles, strands of hair, the soles of their shoes – just incredible. And to think they’ve survived since 210BC…it boggles the mind.
Ava did mostly great, by the way. Once we convinced her that she didn’t need to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ at the top of her lungs to everyone who walked by (seriously, I finally told her that she could no longer sing inside unless she whispered but that she was welcome to sing it as loud as she wanted out of doors*) then she was definitely the best behaved child in there until we tried to stand her beside a faux warrior strategically placed for photo ops. Then – not so much. She made it clear that experience was rated a great big DISLIKE! However the gift shop was another matter entirely and she cajoled us into buying her a glittery gold piggybank that probably cost $2 in China but cost us at least 4 times that much since it had a National Geographic tag stamped on it’s tush. And the souvenir magazine photo with J and Ava that cost us like 8 bucks? Can’t even find it.
But I have this:
Ava was giving me the fake smile and I think J was channeling his inner Captain Morgan for fortification for the trip home being that it was rapidly approaching the 5PM witching hour. You know, the one that he didn’t drive because both he and Ava were soon like this:
All in all, a good day. Glad we went and I hope to be able to actually see it in China someday! 7-8 years from now when we get our next referral, perhaps?
*The stage whispered singing was actually rather amusing and the bursting into song as soon as we exited the building was pretty freakin’ hysterical.