Our Trip to Washington D.C.

 Our Trip to Washington, D.C.

Izzy

8/19/2021

    We got back from Washington, D.C. a couple days ago. I had a great time with Koko and we did so much fun stuff! We hadn’t been to D.C. in a few years so it was good to be back. My highlights of the trip were going to the D.C. United game, staying in the tree house, going to the zoo, and the Spy Museum. I remembered some of the zoo but it was fun to go back. It had been a while since we went to the Spy Museum and it was so cool to do all of the interactive stuff for our secret mission. The museum store was also really cool and I got a few souvenirs. I was sad we didn’t get to go the Holocaust Museum because it’s supposed to be a really good museum. Even though we didn’t get to go, we packed in a lot of other fun stuff during our trip.

    The humidity was definitely something I wasn’t expecting. It was in the 90s and very humid so you got very sweaty whenever walking around. I also loved getting DoorDash for dinner. I got to try a few different restaurants while we watched movies at home. I liked it because Koko let us get whatever we wanted for three days and we’ve only done it a couple times before so it was fun. We also watched a lot of movies - Chaos Walking, Wall-e, Top Gun, A Bug’s Life, Rio, and Rio 2. 

    Something I noticed was that Koko’s neighborhood is a lot of row houses which you don’t see in San Diego. Similar to our neighborhood, pretty much everything is within walking distance. I like Koko’s area and D.C. in general. It was an awesome trip!

The International Spy Museum

 The International Spy Museum

Izzy

8/15/2021

    Today we went to the International Spy Museum. We got there a little before our assigned entry time at 9:15. We’ve been to the Spy Museum before but it was a while ago and they moved buildings. This new building looked really cool and fit the Spy theme. 

    We went inside and were sent up to the 5th floor where we picked a random badge. We had to go to a screen station where we got our cover name. We were given a bunch of random photos and had to pick the one we liked best. We did this three times and it was to get a sense of our interests to determine the mission we would get. I was a veterinarian named Gal Tate and my hometown was Tokyo. For my mission, I had to go to Amsterdam to get intel from an inside source about artificial intelligence that a tech firm created. 

    In the first museum exhibit, we saw different things about real life spies and their missions. There were videos playing of them talking about their mission (if they are still alive) and videos about the spies from the past. Seeing it was really cool because all of their missions were really crazy. One of the spies highlighted, Mata Hari, was a spy during World War 1 and her video was talking about how factual the movies made about her are.

    Throughout the exhibits, we got to do more things for our mission. One task was to contact the source and get the clue from them. I also had to remember my cover because twice I was asked questions about “myself” I had to answer. Another task was to find surveillance threats in an area to see if it would be safe or not. I had to also do a dead drop which is where one person discreetly leaves an object in the place agreed upon so that the other person can get it easily without suspicion. The information I found was left inside a dead rat. 

    There were lots of cool exhibits like one on codes and cyphers, one on finding Osama Bin Laden, and one on disguise. There was a cool thing on the hunt for Osama Bin Laden where they would analyze the parts of the compound he was in and compared it to a normal house, and then thought about what person would require the increased security of the compound. This was the decision process that ultimately led them to finding him and killing him. For the one on disguise, we got to take a picture and add things to disguise ourselves like different hair or a hat. My disguise was pretty funny:

    It was a really fun museum and I’m glad we went. I completed my mission and my top skills were “Analytical Thinker” and I got a “Keen Observation Award. They had a really cool gift shop and I even got a safe that’s disguised as a book. I woul definitely go back to the International Spy Museum!

My Trip to Washington D.C - Review - By Ethan V.

            My Trip to Washington D.C - Review

                                                                            By Ethan V.

                                                                               8-16-21

    Today we flew home from Washington D.C back to San Diego. I had a very fun trip to see Koko, so it was sad to go. Some of my highlights from the trip were going to the zoo and seeing the creepy Caecilian, becoming an amazing spy at the International Spy Museum, and staying in a treehouse for the first time ever. Other highlights for me was being able to get Popeyes (my favorite fast food restaurant) everyday and watching a ton of movies with Koko. I wish we were able to do things that we weren’t able to like going into the Holocaust museum which is supposed to be amazing, and also the African-American Museum. We tried to get into both of them but when we went they were both sold out of tickets. 

    One thing I wasn’t prepared for was the humidity there. For most of the days we were there the weather was 90’s with high humidity, which was terrible to walk around outside in. Something I loved indoors was Koko’s vacuum. She has the Dyson v15, and I normally don’t like vacuuming but it was really fun using this vacuum. I would vacuum the whole house for Koko because of how much I loved it. The reason I loved it was because it has a green light on it to show where the dust you need to vacuum is, and also it has the number of how many particles you have vacuumed. 

    Overall, this trip was a ton of fun, and I can’t wait to go back!

                   International Spy Museum 

                                                                  Ethan V.

                                                                  8-15-21

    Today was our last full day in D.C with Koko so we decided to go to the International Spy Museum. I had been to it before, but it was years ago and since then they had completely moved it and remade the museum. When you first walk into the museum, you go to a table where you pick up your spy badge. This spy badge is your identity for the time you are going through the exhibits, and you can use it to scan into computers and play games/crack codes under your spy account. For example in the first exhibit I played a game where they showed a trunk full of items, and I had to remember as much as I could in 15 seconds. After the 15 seconds I had to answer questions about the items to test my memory. This was one of the side missions. Their is also a main mission tied to your character as you go through the exhibits. Mine was about finding secrets that a tech company was hiding.

    As you went along, there was also gear used by spies and stories about what some spies did. When I went through the exhibits one thing I noticed was that there are a lot of spies in the Middle Eastern Terrorist Organizations like Al Qaeda and taking down Osama Bin Laden and East Berlin during the Cold War. 

    One of the things about the museum that I liked the most was the short documentary stops, where they would have a small theater with a short film playing. One of the short films was a lot of spies speaking about their experiences spying. 

    One of my favorite exhibits in the museum was the exhibit about how they caught Osama Bin Laden. They sort of made it into a game, where they had questions on screen and you had to pick what you thought was right. For example it was about Osama Bin Laden’s compound that he was killed at and it was asking questions like “This compound had 10 foot walls while the rest of the houses in the area had 6 foot walls. Who would most likely have these walls? A criminal, a businessman, the Al Qaeda Leader or Osama Bin Laden?” and you had to select all that could be it. 

    I really liked this museum, because I really had no knowledge of spying before this. Also at the store after the museum I got a can of Spaghetti O’s but it was actually empty and I can fit money in it. Hopefully my dad doesn’t see this and steal it!

The National Zoo

 The National Zoo

Izzy

8/14/2021

    Today we got to visit the National Zoo. We got there pretty early when it wasn’t too crowded. First we went to see the Pandas and went on the Asia trail. We saw two otters that were running around their enclosure and one was waiting at the window that the zoo keepers open, probably waiting for food. We saw a Fishing cat and some Asian Elephants before we went into the Panda building. They were all sleeping inside - two adults and a baby who is about to turn 1 year old. They were all so cute just lying there. 

    We went on the North America trail and saw a cute beaver eating veggies. We also saw some Harbor Seals and California Sea Lions (pictured below) - one of the sea lions was posing right at the fence of the enclosure which was funny. We saw an Andean Bear climb all the way up it’s tree so that it was hiding in the leaves. 

                        

    Next we saw some cool amphibians. There were lots of frogs - we saw a lot of small colorful poison frogs but we also saw an African Clawed frog swimming around. They had weird looking eyes. Later in the Reptile house we saw lots of turtles too. My favorite was the Alligator Snapping Turtle which was looking right at me. Other cool turtles we saw were the Matamata Turtle which had a funny snout and the Fly River Turtle which looked more like a sea turtle.

                      

The Matamata Turtle

The Fly River Turtle

    We got to see a Tiger and a Lion. The Tiger was more alert and it got up to walk around but the Lion was just relaxing. He was lying on his back, unbothered even with all those people staring at him. There was an outdoor enclosure for lemurs and we saw them run around and jump into the trees. There was a pond at the bottom and I counted over 30 turtles in it! I also saw one duck and one tortoise with them. In the Great Ape house we got to see some Gorillas and Orangutans. There was a baby Orangutan that was eating with one of the adults and then went to play in the bubble bath. It was a really fun trip to the zoo!

The baby Orangutan

The National Zoo By Ethan V.

                            The National Zoo

                                                                       By Ethan V.

                                                                         8-14-21

    For todays adventure with Koko we decided to go to National Zoo, which is the zoo in D.C. 

    

    We got a Lyft there at around 9:30 and when we got there the first thing we all wanted to do was see the Pandas. To see the Pandas we had to go through the Asia Trail, which has other animals form Asia in it. One of the cooler animals I saw before seeing the Pandas was the fishing cat, a cat from Asia that hunts fish. The crazy thing about it is that they fed it live fish, and it had to catch them itself. It seems like that would be normal but normally they give even the biggest predators already dead food. Also on the Asian trail we saw the Asian elephants. Elephants are my favorite animal, so it was cool to see them in action.

     Then we got to the Pandas. They we are all inside a building, which makes sense because of how hot it was outside. We saw three and they were all sleeping.   

    After seeing the Asian Trail, we went on the American trail. There we saw two Harbor Seals, a Bald Eagle, and some Sea Lions which we see back home in San Diego all the time. Also on the American Trail was the Andean Bear, which lives in the Andes mountains of South American. These bears were very cool because they actually are very skilled climbers and spend most of their time in trees. There were two there and one of them was walking on the ground but the other was actually climbing a tree in it’s exhibit. 

     Next we went into the Amazonia exhibit, which was right next to the American trail and had a lot of reptiles that live in the Amazon. We saw some Poison Dart frogs and Salamanders but the weirdest of all was the Caecilian, which I had never seen in my life. It looked like a worm or tapeworm but was in the water. It looked like an Alien, because it was so long and had no eyes like a worm. It was a very interesting animal. Another one of my favorites from the Amazonia exhibit was the African Clawed Frog, which looks like a normal frog but actually swims, and we saw it swim right in front of us. 

    Another one of the coolest things I saw at the Zoo was the reptile house. We saw a Cuban Crocodile that was staring at us, and a lot of snakes, turtles and lizards. The best, though was the Alligator Snapping Turtle and another Turtle that looked very similar to a dinosaur with a weird nose and claws on its flippers. 

Overall, today was very fun and I learned and saw a lot of new things!

Wall-e

Wall-e

Izzy

8/13/2021

    Today we watched Wall-e. I haven’t watched it recently so it was pretty new to me. I really liked the movie and thought it had a good message.

    Wall-e is set in the future where Earth is covered in trash and humans live on a giant space ship. Wall-e is a robot who has been created to compact the trash into cubes and is the only robot still working in the city. One day he finds a plant while collecting trash. When a ship comes to Earth with a robot named Eve, Wall-e is fascinated by her. She is looking for signs of life and feels hopeless until Wall-e shows her the plant he found. She shuts down until the ship comes back to take her to the Axiom, the space ship the humans live on. Wall-e gets on the ship to go back with her. She shows the Captain the plant and he hopes that they can go back to Earth. On the ship, everyone sits in hover chairs and stares at a screen all day. They were only meant to be on the ship for 5 years while the robots cleaned up Earth but it’s been 700 years. Over time, the people’s bones have grown further apart and they are all more obese than normal. When the Captain tries to make the ship go back to Earth, the autopilot tries to stop him because it doesn’t think that they can go back. The Captain is able to turn off the autopilot and gets them back to Earth where they start growing lots of plants. 

    I think this movie is trying to show a possible future for us and to show the consequences of throw away culture, where we all think we can just throw everything away without worrying of the impact on the Earth. I think they were also trying to make people aware of what could happen if we just stare at screens all the time. At one point in the movie, a woman’s screen gets turned off and she notices that there is a giant pool on the ship which she never saw before. It showed that we can miss so much when we get too sucked into whatever is on our screens and don’t appreciate what is happening around us. One last point is that they were trying to show that we can turn things around for the better. When the captain realizes he can take full control over the ship instead of relying on the autopilot robot, he actually brings them back to Earth and plants the plant which is the start of a new age for humans. 

Eve and Wall-e

                              The Naval Academy

                                                                                 By Ethan V.

                                                                                    8-12-21

    Today we decided to go to Annapolis, Maryland to see the Naval Academy. The Naval academy is a college that leads into the US Navy, and where Koko went to school.

    At the start of our day my mom left to go to a wedding in Pennsylvania, so Koko, Izzy and I had to find something to do. We chose to go to the Naval Academy, which is about a 45 minute drive from Koko’s house. The Naval Academy is in Annapolis, Maryland, which is the capitol of Maryland. The Naval Academy was founded in 1845, 70 years after the Navy was founded.

    The Naval Academy is free to go to, but if you go to school there for over 2 years you are required to serve 5 years in the Navy after you finish school. When we got there, it was extremely hot like it has been all week, and at one point it got to 99 degrees! Anyway, we were walking around the campus and Koko was explaining all the traditions of the school to us. Some of them were that it is required that every student must go to every football game, and they have to march there.

    Another tradition is Plebe summer. A plebe was what the ancient Romans called the common people, and now plebe is used as a name for freshman at the Naval Academy. Plebe summer is the summer before school starts officially for the plebes, so they are tested to see if they will drop out before. Somethings Koko was telling us the upperclassmen (Sophmores, Juniors, Seniors, anybody above that like captains, etc.) would yell at the plebes. The plebes also have no rights. The plebes can’t have a phone or car, and they have to stay in rooms that aren’t air conditioned which seems terrible in the heat we were in. Also, they have smaller rules for them like how they can’t walk on curved paths and you cant walk on the grass and they can only sleep between 9 PM and 6:30 AM.

    While we were walking around the campus, we went into the swimming building that had a diving pool and a very long swimming pool. We also saw the tomb of the creator of the US Navy, John Paul Jones, who also created the Russian Navy. We then made our way to one of the stores, where I got a stuffed animal of Bill the goat, who is the mascot of Navy. They had pictures of the different Bills over the years, which was cool to see because they have had a goat as their mascot since the early 1900s. 

    One of the cooler things I saw at the Naval Academy was the Herndon Monument, mostly because if the tradition about it. The tradition around this monument is that they cover it with grease, and then all the plebes in that years class have to work together as a team to climb up to the top and then rip off a hat at the top that is taped and replace it. Once they do this all the plebes have officially “graduated” from being a plebe and can no longer be called it.

Georgetown By Ethan V.

                                Georgetown   

By Ethan V.               

                                                                               8-11-21

    For today’s adventure, we decided to walk around the campus of Georgetown University. Izzy and I hadn’t been in a while and it was very cool to see the campus where my parents went to college. 

     The walk to the Georgetown area is 20 minutes from Koko’s house. It doesn’t seem that bad but it was terrible since we had to walk in 93 degree heat and 90-95% humidity, which made us all hot and sticky. Somehow we eventually made it and stopped at Booey Mongers, a sandwich shop that my mom used to eat at when she was a student at Georgetown University. I got a steak egg and cheese sandwich that was really good but I was creeped out because there was a centipede crawling on the floor around us.

    After eating lunch, we walked further in the heat until we finally made it to the campus of Georgetown University. We started off by going into the store for Georgetown apparel, and we got a lot of clothing. I got a white Georgetown hoodie, and also a Georgetown dog bandana for our dog Noodle since he wears bandanas. 

   

Next we walked to their football field, which was kind of cool to see even though they have terrible football. However, right near the football stadium was the John Thompson athletic center which is named after the famous Georgetown University basketball coach. It was a cool building because it had all the sports trophies that Georgetown had won and I got to see the 1984 NCAA basketball trophy that they won with Patrick Ewing. 

     That was the last building we went into in the campus of Georgetown, and we walked along the Potomac off of the campus to a part of Georgetown that had more shops. After spending some more money, we walked down to a water park on K street, and we didn’t get completely soaked but we walked under the sprinklers some times. This water park is right next to the Potomac so it was cool to see the natural water while running through the sprinklers in the park.

    At the end of the day, we ordered Indian food for dinner, which I hadn’t had in a while so I was unsure about whether I would like it or not. But, after having it I can say its very good. 

          

Luray Caverns

 The Luray Caverns

Izzy

8/10/2021

    Today we got to visit the Luray Caverns! On our way back to D.C. from the Eagle’s Nest, we stopped in Luray, Virginia. The caverns seem to be the only attraction in that small town which is why they advertised for it with about 10 giant billboards along the freeway. 

    The Luray Caverns were first discovered on August 13th, 1874 by William Campbell, Andrew Campbell, and Benton Stebbins. They discovered the caverns from a quarter-sized sink hole in the ground and they felt the cold air coming out of it. That small sink hole was widened to create the entrance that we went in through. 

This is the entrance to the caverns.

    When you start going down into the caverns, you see the stalagmites and stalactites all around you. The caverns are estimated to be around 450 million years old. It was so crazy to see it all because they were so big and were so crazy looking that it seemed fake. According to the pamphlet, stalagmites and stalactites are created when, “Water mixed with carbon dioxide from the atmosphere creates a mild carbonic acid in the soil. When that solution seeps through the ground, coming in contact with the limestone layers, the acid hollows out the bedrock creating these cavern rooms. By slowly eroding the weaker minerals, the harder minerals are left behind. These are the walls and ceilings. As water continues to drip into the chambers, the carbon dioxide is released, and the droplet crystallizes. Resulting formations are called speleothems.” The rounded formations on the floor are stalagmites and the thin, pointy ones hanging from the ceiling are the stalactites. The crazy part is that they only grow one cubic inch ever 120 years!! There were many different formations and sizes throughout the different rooms of the caverns.

    My two favorite parts of the caverns were the Dream Lake and the Fried Eggs. The Dream Lake was a shallow lake that made a perfect mirror reflection of the the stalactites on the ceiling. The reflection makes it look like there are a bunch of underwater stalagmites when the lake is actually only 18 to 20 inches at it’s deepest. It was so cool looking because it really did look like there were underwater stalagmites! It’s also the largest body of water in the caverns and covers 2,500 square feet. The Fried Eggs are two stalagmites that were shaved off when they widened the tunnel. I liked them because they really do look like fried eggs!

This is the Dream Lake. What looks like underwater stalagmites is actually the reflection of the ceiling.

These are the Fried Eggs.

    The Giant Redwood is the largest and oldest formation. It is a huge formation that is 40 feet tall and 120 feet in circumference. It’s also estimated to be over 7 million years old. We learned that they used to hold dances in one room called the Cathedral. The Cathedral houses The Great Stalacpipe Organ which is the largest musical instrument in the world. The stalactites are gently tapped and the vibrations of the stalactites sends a signal to the instrument that creates “the electrical equivalent its tone.” We heard it play and it was cool that it was coming from the stalactites. One other cool sight was the wishing well, the deepest body of water in the caverns. It is 6 feet deep but the bottom will be covered in 2 to 3 feet of coins by the end of the year. The coins are collected and donated. So far, over $1.2 million has been collected from the Wishing Well. We all got to throw a coin in too. Overall, it was a really cool and memorable experience to learn about stalagmites and stalactites!

The Wishing Well

D.C United Soccer Game

 D.C. United Soccer Game

Izzy

8/9/2021

    Yesterday we got to watch D.C. United play against the Montréal Football Club. I had a great time watching the soccer game and going to my first big event in over a year and a half! 

    The D.C. United are the men’s soccer team for D.C. and they compete at the Audi Field. D.C. United first started in 1996 and has won 4 MLS Cups. In case you didn’t know, soccer games are 90 minutes long with two 45 minute halves. The first goal was scored by Montréal in the 16th minute but D.C. their first goal before halftime in the 40th minute. There were many close calls but D.C. got another goal. The final score was 2-1, D.C. United won!! 

    I really enjoyed the game, which surprised me because I don’t normally like soccer. I don’t enjoy playing it but watching the game in person was really fun. During the National Anthem, there were fireworks and more fireworks were launched when D.C. United scored. Cheering with the crowd also made it really fun and the excitement when they scored a goal. There was one section of the stands that were cheering and singing the entire time and one person was beating a drum. I would definitely go to another game and in my opinion, it is more exciting than a baseball game. I enjoy the fast pace of soccer and the excitement from how close the game can be until the last second. One thing I don’t enjoy about soccer is how dramatic the players can be about an “injuries” to make it seem worse than it is. Sometimes they actually do get really hurt but many times it’s fake.

    It was also the first big event I’ve been to since Covid started so it was kind of crazy. The stands weren’t entirely full but there were a good amount of people in our section. We were actually pretty close to the field and almost in the middle so we had a great view.  Masks were only required if you weren’t fully vaccinated and I did see people still wearing them which was nice. It felt pretty normal though and I had a really good time.

The view from our seats

Eagle’s Nest Treehouse and Shenandoah National Park Ethan V.

             Eagle’s Nest Treehouse and Shenandoah National Park

                                                                 By Ethan V.

                                                         8-9-21

    We were lucky to be with Koko in person for her birthday this year, which is a first for us! To celebrate we drove to a tree house in Virginia called the Eagle’s Nest treehouse. We also took a hike in the Shenandoah National Park, which was the first time Izzy and I had been there. 

    We started off the day in Koko’s house in D.C, where she opened her birthday presents. After we ate breakfast we hit the road for a 2 hour drive to Shenandoah National Park. The park is known for having lots of black bears, which was scary for me to hear because I did not want to see one.

    When we got there around noon, we had 4 hours before we could check into our Airbnb so we went for a hike before driving there. We went on the Rose River Falls trail, which was a fairly easy trail to a waterfall. We took pictures but I was getting very freaked out because there were a ton of millipedes there climbing on the rocks and ground. After a little we headed back to the car, and during the walk back I counted seeing 18 millipedes (it was extremely scary). Luckily we didn’t see any bears the entire time on the trail.

    Then we decided to drive South to the visitors center because we had to go that way to go to the treehouse anyway. On the way to the visitors center, though, a deer ran through the street right in front of us and we were very close to hitting it. We made it to the visitors center and after looking through it we went on to a store a little bit away. There we got snacks and I got a checkers game to play at the treehouse.

    After this we drove about 45 minutes to the treehouse. It is very cool and they really went in with the eagle theme of the house. Everywhere you look is something about eagles. After playing games like checkers (I beat Izzy) and Uno, we had pasta for dinner.

    Then we took a quick walk around the area where our treehouse is and we saw the pond down the road. It has crocodile statues in it that Izzy and I thought were real at first because of how realistic they are, even though you are allowed to swim in the pond. Also near the treehouse was a farm area where we saw a lot of cows that were very cute. 

    We ended the day by hanging out in the hot tub and I watched the Disney movie Brother Bear.