Maryland!

Man!  What I just spent on a pizza in Iceland.  You don't want to know.

OK, so... Maryland.  I arrived Friday night, picked up my rental car, met my folks at our hotel.  We then went out to dinner and went to the airport to pick up my sister. 

I hadn´t planned on doing this.  I had flown into Dulles, which was closer.  She had flown into BWI, which is rather farther away.  I thought my folks would get her while I ran errands or something.  Cause I had my own car.

Went with them anyway.  BWI is one huge terminal.  By all rights, it is actually FIVE terminals, but they´re all in one massive building -- so, rather than call it five terminals with connecting walkways, they call it a single terminal.  As we drove around the terminal trying to find which section of it housed American (on which my sister was arriving), I tried to take note of where Icelandair was located.  I thought I spotted it as the very last airline in Terminal E.  This would become relevant later.

The next morning, my mother went off to do family stuff (the whole reason were in Maryland was my grandmother's 90th birthday) and my father took me and my sister into Washington DC.

We drove by the new WWII Memorial -- which is really quite spiffy -- then continued on to our REAL destination -- the International Spy Museum.

Here's what you need to know about the International Spy Museum:  It sells out.  We never called ahead, so couldn't get in to see it.  We went for lunch at a nearby restaurant, dejected.

After lunch, we asked some guy if there was anywhere nearby worth walking to.  He speaks with a heavy accent, and tells us something about going around the block to 14th.  This makes no sense.  Fourteenth is, like, 6 blocks away.

But we follow his directions anyway, and it finally dawns on us that he wasn't saying "Fourteenth" but "Ford's Theatre."  Right there.  They have a museum in the basement with all sorts of artifacts pertaining to Lincoln, Booth and the assassination.  They even have Booth's gun.  Tiny little thing.  Amazing, though, to look at this small, worn pistol and think, "This killed a President."  (I took pictures.  You´ll see them later.)  We also ran across the street to see the house where Lincoln died.  (It has a big sign outside the front reading, "The House Where LincolnDied," which, for some reason, struck me as funny.)

Saturday night we had a great big family dinner.

I went back to the hotel and turned my two suitcases into Two Suitcases and Two Duffels (much repacking).  I was all set for the adventure that was...  Sunday!