Go Blue. Colors.

Absolutely amazing fall has arrived. When I came here less than a month ago, everything was still green and today the streets are full of yellow, orange and red colors. All the pictures are taken within 500 meter radius from home :)

Go Blue. Pumpkin party. Livonia.

Everything started, when the lady, who lives in that house, was dissatisfied with the situation that her home was so far to the end of the no outlet street that no kid bothered walking there for the trick or treat. So, around ten years ago she started to add more and more decorations in her yard and has now also reached the neighbours yard. Apparently it takes her and her husband two weeks to get all the display up every year. At least she can't complain about lack of visitors anymore - the street, yard and even their porch was full of people.

Dear reader - if you want to decorate your front yard or porch with skeletons or something like that, now you know, where to get ideas.

Go Blue. Pumpkin Party. Howell.

I don't know any holidays that are being taken more seriously than the pumpkin party and Christmas. Even 4th of July and the Valentines Day pale in compare to the decorations of those two. In this and the next post there's a small overview of the most pompous displays. See also the recent post about Washington D.C. and the front yards there.

So, here are two yards, both in Howell. One of the neighbours has set up a bunch of scenes from thrillers (Hitchcock Psycho, Poletergeist etc) and right next door there's a huge graveyard setup.

Experience Washington D.C. Dinner.

Since I spent the day on the conference, there's not much else to report than dinner. We went back to the Roofers Union, managed to get in this time and also eat. The food was very good by the way - onion soup, roasted Brussel sprouts, pate, home made french fries and beer. We also went downtown to see the Washington monument all lit up :)

Experience Washington D.C. How we visited the Washington Monument and made the day for German tourists.

We got up before roosters and the dawn, called a cab and drove to the ticket office. We got there an hour before they opened the window and there were at least 99 people already waiting. I made a good use of the hour and watched the rising sun painting Lincoln Memorial all golden while the moon was slowly setting behind it. By the time the ticket office opened, the line was at least 500 meters long. Since we were not able to plan our day so well, we took tickets for 12pm and 1pm visits (tickets were for free, btw).

Anyway, we made it there by 12pm, enjoyed the endless views of all the political buildings and not-political areas. Since we still had the 1pm tickets, we walked to the ticket office in the hope to find some other lousy planner there, who’s naively trying to buy the tickets still. And exactly as expected - we made the day of a German couple, who now had the chance to go up in half an hour.

We had lunch again on the Union Market, where Scott had arepa and me salmon salad. From there we walked through a residential area to Barrack Row, which was supposed to have amazing street art. We found one graffiti. So, we went to sit on a terrace, where Scott ordered a bottomless mimosa. On the way back we found a veggie garden right next to the Congress with some pumpkins, rhubarb, beets and some more items.

For the dinner we had chosen Roofers Union, but once arrived, it turned out that on this lovely day they were closed. We ate in the Turkish place across the street and it was delicious.