district sleeps alone tonight.

so i just got back about an hour and a half ago from dropping mark at the airport and i decided this epic weekend required a blog post that will probs be obnoxiously long and over-detailed.

so the arrivals board at reagan and i got into a fight. first it said his flight was coming in at 12:15. then it said 12:22 so i went to read and checked again at 12:17 at which point, the flight had landed. seriously arrivals board? not nice. also, it was creepy as hell b/c there was almost nobody around for a while. it almost looked like the beginning of a murder mystery. but i clearly survived.

when we got back here and decided to finally go to bed, mark instructed me to set an alarm for 10 am so i did and woke up when it went off. he then had me reset it for half an hour later. alright, that's fine. however when i was up at 10 and he was still asleep at 2, we had some issues so i went to the grocery store and made him get up at 3 so we could go wander around tenley, went to campus and wandered around there, hung out in the library checking email, went to chipotle, got a few beers and came back here to eat and watch a movie at which point we crashed at 10 from being so tired.

sunday was probably the best day by far. we woke up early (like before 8 am early) and went down to the mall even though it was misting and generally unpleasant weatherwise. we had a little adventure getting from metro center down to the washington monument. we got our tickets to go up to the top then went in the book store. the lady offered us a free map b/c we clearly had no idea where we were going. mark took the map from me and informed me that my map privileges were revoked b/c i didn't know where i was. my response was "i know where we are!... i just can't find it on the map!" the lady who worked there as well as mark busted out laughing. it was good times, man. although we probs should have gotten 2 maps b/c we kept passing it back and forth every 2 mins. it didn't look so good by the end of the day.

while we were waiting for it to be time to go to the washington monument, we went to the lincoln memorial. question of the day: why does washington get a monument and lincoln a memorial? i taught mark how to do "m" and "p" in asl so he could have his hands in the equivalent position of lincoln's (an "a" and "l") but w/o a chair, it just turned out funny looking. we also did a breeze through of the WWII memorial on our way between the washington monument and lincoln memorial.

the washington monument was like 10 different kinds of cool. when we went through security, mark's belt set off the metal detector so he got pulled off to the side and wanded. haha. then we went into this little waiting room type place. it was really pretty. then we went up 500 ft in the air where there were 4 sets of windows. one set pointing east, west, north, and south each. at one point, we saw 2 helicopters flying in the no fly zone that mark said were very marine 1-ish. he then ran around to the other side and saw one of them land on the white house lawn, people got on, then they took off again. then on our way down in the elevator, i'm 99.9% sure that our tour guide was this guy who went/goes to AU.

when we got down, we came up w/ a plan. however, when mark was looking at the map to create said plan, he thought the "bureau of engraving and printing" was the bureau of engineering and printing. self-centered much? we even saw the bureau on the way to the jefferson memorial, and when i pointed this out, he kept smacking my arm like a girl until the building was out out sight. after that we went to capitol building, walked by a bunch of smaller monuments i never knew existed and went to union station for lunch. that was all pretty uneventful until we walked out and there were 2 special agents standing at the top of the metro holding machine guns. wtf! we have no idea what was going on but yeah... we got out of there pretty fast even though they were just chillin and letting tourists take pictures. then we went to the white house visitor center and learned about the white house for a while. when it closed at 4, we went to the actual white house. and stood at the back gate. for an HOUR AND A HALF. in the first 15 mins we were there, there were snipers on the roof and an extra secret security agent showed up w/ a dog then a little while later another showed up on a bike. mark was convinced that this meant something was going to happen. so we waited. and waited. and waited some more. let me tell you, nothing happened.

then we went back to the WWII memorial, visited the korean and vietnam memorials. i had some issues reading the map to get us to the vietnam memorial and therefore made a wrong turn and we went the wrong way for about a block. he then gave me a hard time for wasting 4 mins of his life. when i failed to, he pointed out that would be a good time to mention that he wasted an hour and a half of mine. i love it when he pays himself out for me. after that we headed back to see the front of the white house and headed up to see the australian embassy. then we walked to the metro and went to the super market (again) to pick up some specifics for dinner and snacks for mark to take with him. we came home and evy came over, which was lots and lots of fun. she and mark got along much better than i expected. after she left we had a nice (read: very embarrassing for heather) conversation w/ jackson. i didn't realize how much i missed them teasing me together. they're pretty funny when they bounce off each other. but then it was time for mark to finish packing, which left us both very sad.

today we woke up, he finished packing, we had lunch and were very soon thereafter off to the airport. we managed to stay cheery up until he was about to get in line (ha! i remembered it's not on line!) for security. we had a really long hug and everyone who was paying attention to us probs thought it was adorable. then i waited in line with him until they asked for his boarding pass. when i went to sneak out i got scolded by the security guard but there was nothing saying that only people holding boarding passes could go past. i totally had this entire little speech planned for before we parted company but i forgot before it was too late.

now i just need to figure out when i will have time, emotional energy, and available funds to go back to australia. it's tempting to go back at the end of the summer but given how sad i am right now after spending 2 and a half days w/ 1 of the people i miss so much, i think a week might actually kill me. this=down side of going abroad.

sorry this was such a long one but i really wanted to chronicle this.

now for the count downs.
birthday: 6 days
birthday dinner w/ parents/grandparents: 8 days
home in nj for the summer: 11 days.