DC and Back Again--Day Four

...and another day of commercial shooting for Viv. This time Cory went with her, so I don't have as many details about this day. I do know she did some 'man-on-the-street' interviews and was completely comfortable with the idea of approaching complete strangers and asking them questions. Amazing! They spent the second half of the day indoors at another location. (thank goodness, as it was another cold day!)

Sullivan and I had a nice breakfast at the hotel restaurant, The Palette. I had to laugh as Sullivan scoffed out loud to the server about the five dollar glasses of juice. My beloved oatmeal was $7. Of course I'm sure a lot of it had to do with the fact that we were at a fancy hotel, but overall food is very expensive in Washington DC. I suppose this is how they make their money, as most of the museums are free and amazingly enough the souveniers in the museum gift shops are surprisingly inexpensive as well.

After our meal we walked three blocks from the hotel to the nearest Metro station. I was quite proud of myself, I was determined to figure this out all by my little self. Hey, I used to be on my own here and in L.A., took the train from New Jersey into NYC all by myself without knowing where to go or what to do years ago....but that was years ago. It's funny how once you get older, and especially when you have children, you get more paranoid and afraid to do things. I guess you just pay more attention to all of the bad things that could happen to you along the way as you get one day closer to death and have someone else to watch out for. But! That was not going to stop me! We found the station and took the escalator down. I had no clue how to work the ticket system, luckily there was a group of people who had just figured it out and were very helpful. Before I knew it we were on the blue line making for the Smithsonian stop. Fun!

I have to say, it was not easy to tell which way to go once we got off the train. There aren't many signs marking the way, and the signs that are there are pretty vague. All of the museums are in a row, and they are not well marked from across the way--so it's hard to know what's what. Luckily being a woman I have no problem asking for directions, so I just stopped some passerby and they were very helpful. (everyone was very nice in that town, I will say.)

Knowing what a little scientist my son is and how he is fascinated with the solar system, Sullivan and I went right to the Air and Space Museum. What a cool place! He was definitely in his element with all of the airplanes, space shuttles and paraphernalia, models of the solar system. There were many 'hands on' things for kids to do. I have to say though, my personal favorite room was the one that had choice things from the American History Museum temporarily housed in it, as it was being renovated at the time. Dorothy's ruby slippers, Lincoln's top hat he wore the day he was shot, R2D2 and C3PO, even Carrie Bradshaw's laptop were among the many cool things displayed. I was pleasantly surprised at how cool it was to actually see those things in person.

After lunch at the in-house loft-style McDonald's which gave a great view of the area, we jumped back onto the Metro and headed back to the hotel. Mission Accomplished! At that point Sullivan and I just chilled at the hotel until Vivian and Cory got back. Once again we were pampered with room service as the celebrity and her dad came back right at dinner time, and once again an early night was called to get some sleep for the next busy day. Barbara stopped by the hotel room with a fruit basket to say her goodbyes as she was leaving the next day. She was so wonderful! Even though she was done with her part, it had been decided that the Fallon team would indeed shoot a couple more spots on their own--cameraman Josh stayed another day, which was great. The days had flown by, it was hard to believe we were approaching our last already!