My friends Nanci and Tom got married on Saturday. Yea!!!!

4 am came way too early. I pulled on my coat and shoes and Lisa and I set off for the Metro stop to find a cab. There were no cabs. I suppose that makes sense; the Metro was closed, nobody coming out. So we stood on Wilson and eventually flagged one down. We said goodbye and I trudged home and back to bed.

I woke up about 2 hours later than planned, unfortunately. I guess I was tired. I got dressed and made spaghetti- I have to admit it was tasty, though I don't think the noodles were cooked all the way. (A little too al dente.) After lunch, Crystal, Beth and I set off back to the city. We decided to hit the Mall and check out some Smithsonian museums. Air and Space was first. It was really cool. I remember the last time I was here, in 2000, my mom and I went to the Archives while my sister and my daddy went to the Air and Space Museum. I wasn't interested in that stuff then. I touched a moon rock. It was a lot smoother and a lot less dusty than I thought it would be. We saw a bunch of planes suspended from tension wires. (Hopefully very strong and thick wires.) There was an exhibit about planes and WWI. It's a wonder people don't consider the present a "war-time" like they did in the World Wars. Granted, that was larger scale warfare. But we're still sending soldiers to a far-off country to die. All of these memorials and exhibits this weekend has really made me think about my attitude toward war and patriotism. I feel very patriotic about our troops and want to support them as much as possible. But I'm also a dove. I could never in good conscience support sending men and women my age to die for someone else's problems.

That being said, the rest of the museum was pretty cool. I wanted to see the planetarium. But not for $8.50. Yeesh. We still had some time before we had to be back at the apartment for Crystal and Beth to catch their plane, so we decided to go to another museum, this time Natural History. Also very cool. We saw the Hope Diamond. (*Mine. Mine. Mine.*) A lot of dinosaurs. Fossilized dung. Really old plants. There was an insect zoo. A lot of hand-sized tarantulas. And a creepy huge centipede (definitely not a fan of those). Learning can be fun, too! We walked to the nearest Metro stop, Federal Triangle and went back to Arlington. Crystal and Beth got their stuff together. They said they could handle walking to the stop themselves. We said goodbye. Goodbye, Chicago. I'll see you Thursday.