BAYONETS!!!

Tyson leading the group on our last adventure together...

My favorite view from the top. That's the Tidal Basin and Jefferson Memorial. Lovely.

Friday, July 10th was Tyson's last night with us. To celebrate his time here and mourn the fact that he was leaving, we had a night out with the gang. We went to Potbelly's for dinner (my favorite place to eat lunch and dinner in the Washington, D.C. area), up the Washington Monument (FINALLY!), and to Rosslyn to watch the Karate Kid at the park by the bridge. And then, tradition has it that we like to sit by the waterfront in Georgetown. And so we went down there with Tyson, one last time.

Me and Kate laying on the benches at the Monument. One of my favorite pasttimes.

And now I have to say that WE MISS TYSON! We was the group leader- the planner, the person that made things happen. Daily, the question came up, "What are we going to do today?" And then someone would say, "Ask Tyson," or "Tyson wants to do (BLANK)." He always had a plan, a special skill for convincing people that his idea was the best idea ever, and was excellent at shepherding everyone in the same direction. And now, we are without a leader, and the social structure in the Barlow has loosened, and gotten a little chaotic. But it's all good. We only have to survive 2 more weeks. (Survive! Yeah, right. More like try to hold on to every last second and savor every moment).

On Saturday, July 11th, we went as a whole group to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. We watched a movie at the vistor's center and then went up in the "Cyclorama" is a circular mural that shows the whole battlefield and they flash lights and stuff so it looks like there is a battle going on all around you. It sounds cheesy, but it was actually pretty cool. Then, we went to the museum. There was A LOT of stuff in there. Normally museums with a lot of stuff completely stress me out. When there is too much, I don't appreciate anything, and I feel like looking at everything and pretending to try and enjoy are just a waste of my time. BUT, I actually really liked this one. Genevieve, Cameron, and I were completely into it. We went really slow, taking pictures and reading everything... until we suddenly realized that we were supposed to have been back in the bus like ten minutes before. So, we rushed out of the exhibit, speed walked through the building (I didn't even get a chance to go to the gift shop! GRRRR.), and ran to the bus. Everyone was waiting for us, and started clapping when we stepped on. And then, for some reason, I could not escape that little mistake ALL DAY. Genevieve and Cameron weren't teased about it, but I was. For some reason, I am kind of famous for being late to things like this. And I am SO not always late! Adam in particular likes to tease me about it. For the rest of the day, everytime we got off the bus, like 3 people would make sure that I knew when to get back on. Or they would say things like, "tell Audrey an earlier time so that she's here when we need to leave. hahaha." I am a big girl, alright!

But anyway, we rode around the battlefield in our bus with the tour guide man telling us things in very rapid speech that was hardly coherent for like an hour. The battlefield was beautiful, and apparentely it is almost perfectly preserved to how it was at the time of the battle. There were old houses that still had cannon ball shards in them, and all the battlefield land was still just open battlefield land. It was gorgeous. There was a lookout tower that we went up to see be able to see the whole area, it was just incredible. I can't believe that I was in the place where the Battle of Gettysburg took place. Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address in that place! It was cool.

The last stop before we dropped off the tour guide man was Little Round Top. Apparently it is a significant place in the battle. It was a very strategic position for the Union army- the best held high ground. While we were up there, we filmed a movie. Matt and Jeff are obsessed with the scene in the Gettysburg movie on Little Round Top, and we filmed a reenactment of the bayonet charge. It was HILARIOUS. They had a script all written out, and they hired extras, namely Genevieve and I. You can watch that video on Facebook, but I am not going to post it here because it is potentially very embarrassing. I live with a whole bunch of really fun nerds, okay? They like to do things like film battle reenactments in historic places. It's fun, I swear.

A side-ways picture of the sunflowers that were all over Gettysburg. It was so PRETTY!!Genevieve!!!Me and Ryan and our matching sunglasses Gettysburg College-- see the tower in the distance? That's where my intern friend Matt goes to school. He says college funny- like "Cawwlidge."
The top of Little Round Top-- by where we filmed our movie. And that little tower thing was really cool!!!

We went to General Pickett's Buffet for lunch (GRODY), and got in a huge argument about whether or not the meat that was on my plate was chicken parmesan or VEAL. I had thought it was chicken, but before I took a bite Cameron informed me that it was actually veal. I put my fork down and refused to eat. Everyone at my table then worked very hard to convince me that it was actually chicken, and that they had just previously thought it was veal. I nearly believed them until Mallory came and sat down and said, "Oh, how do you like the veal?" End of the attempt to get Audrey to eat veal.

The next stop was Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, home to John Brown's raid, a prequel event to the Civil War. We didn't have much time there, and I'm still not sure what Harper's Ferry actually is. I think it is a ferry- like the kind of boat on a river than carries people from one side to the other. But if that is the case, the the actually ferry doesn't exist anymore, because we didn't see it. We just spent our time in the little, historically preserved town. It was very charming, and they had all sorts of people dressed up like the Civil War era. But like I said, we didn't have much time.

Here are some pictures from our wanderings of the little town.

On the shuttle to the village... We were VERY excited, apparently.
Where the ferry was supposed to be... I think. But isn't it pretty?? West Virginia was gorgeous. No wonder Ann loves living there.
Random shot. I added it because my legs look tan. :)

On Sunday, we had church, and then Me, Cameron, Michelle, Amanda, and Juliana walked down to the Einstein Memorial, and the memorial of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. The latter is actually on the mall, in the Constitution Gardens, but somehow everyone missed it! It was really cool. They both were. Those are my favorite kinds of things. The little known ones that are actually really meaningful and neat.

The Washington Monument. In the snow??? No, the white dots are not snowflakes. They were BUGS!This is what the signers memorial looked like. There was a semi-circle of blocks like this with the signatures on them. I couldn't get a good picture of them all because it was dark and lake was in the way (I couldn't back up far enough).
The Einstein Memorial. We climbed right up on that guy and took a picture... I don't know where it went though.

The end!