a long weekend

it was a busy long weekend. thanks to labor day, we all got an extra day off. this was the last weekend before peabody classes would start. so, to make best use of the precious free time, we did all the things we had wanted to do but did not get the chance to do yet.

saturday. we visited jojo's college dorm. juju and jamie were so excited. when we arrived on campus, jamie kept asking, "where is it? are we there yet?" she literally jumped for joy when we finally enterred jojo's dorm building.

it was a very nice dorm. it had everything, including a gym, laundromat, a lounge on each floor, even a movie theater. each room sleeps two students. it was quite spacious. even with two beds, two desks and chairs, and two dressers, there was enough space for a small party. each suite also had a small kitchen and bath and shower. in short, it was very nice. 日记谷 http://www.rijigu.com/

jojo's roommate was there studying at her desk. we said hi to her. she was a very nice looking girl. her parents originally came from argentina. we did not want to bother her. so we stayed for a little while and then left.

jojo came home with us. in the evening, we went to a big party at a friend's house. there was so much yummy food. we were all stuffed.

we did not come home till late at night. jamie invited her two big sisters to sleep in her room. they made a bed on the floor. the three sisters chatted well past the midnight before they finally slept.

sunday. after taking jojo back to college early in the morning, we left for an apple orchard. it was a beautiful day to be out on the farm. it was time to pick honey crisp apples at this time of the year. lots of people probably had already come and picked the apples. some of the trees were quite bare, especially at the beginning of the rows. we walked further down the lanes, and found there were still plenty of apples left. in no time, we had a big bagful of apples. we tasted a couple. they were so juicy and fresh. there was nothing in the world better than apples fresh off the trees! 日记谷 http://www.rijigu.com/

monday, the labor day. we decided to visit national gallery of art in dc. dc was one of my most favorite cities. it was the power center of the country, full of stately archetecture, yet it was very visitor friendly. the museums were among the best in the world and they were all free. we used to visit the natural history museum a lot, a favorite for little kids. now that juju and jamie had grown, it was a good time to visit the art gallery.

before our visit, we did some preparation, including checking out their website and learning about their collections. even though i had been to quite a few art museums, this one was definitely the best! not only did it have many of the most famous artworks, such as those by da vince, van gogh, monet etc, but also it was such a friendly and convenient place to visit! for example, most museums did not allow photograghing. here, you could take as many photos as you liked. every show room had comfy sofas in the middle. this was definitely a life saver especially for little kids and elderly.

i enjoyed looking at many of the paintings. the ones i liked most were the self portrait by van gogh and the family of saltimbanques by picasso. seeing these artworks in person was a very different experience from seeing them on the internet. when i looked at the van gogh painting, i was struck by how gaunt and sickly he looked. i could see despair in his eyes.  

the picasso painting was much bigger than i had expected. it was a scene of sad people against a drab, depressing background. their future, if any, looked very gloomy indeed. someone pointed out that the young man in the picture was the artist himself, something i did not know before. this painting would match how i had looked at the world in my youth. even though i am much older now and have passed that stage of life, i was still moved the sense of hopelessness and isolation in the painting.

we spent almost four hours in the museum, till we were all tired and hungery. we had our late lunch in we, the pizza, one of the best pizza stores in dc. the store was right behind the capital hill. many famous people had eaten here, including president obama!