Cowells Favorite Pics

A couple of these were shot by me, most weren't. All speak for themselves, I think. Those two of the boys at the Korean Memorial are both so evocative (shot by Hannah B, I think, or Elyse C), that I decided to post them both rather than choose one over the other.

Pics worthy of posting

This year I put up onto flickr.com over 1600 photos that the kids and chaperones took. In past years, I did much more filtering -- this year I figured I'd just let you families wade through the many interesting and varied perspectives. I do want to highlight a couple photos that haven't yet made it onto the blog.
The first two come from Zach. Every trip I wish the kids would spend less on cheap touristy souvenirs and find more authentic ways to remember our time. Zach came up with a brilliant idea -- he took advantage of all the time we spent waiting in line to carve a real nickel into a square. Cool beans, eh?

He's also to credit for the creative use of the Washington Monument as dagger-through-the-hand photo.

The other two shots aren't particularly unique, other than that I think the kids did a fantastic job this yea of photographing each other. It's photos like these that I think will prove most meaningful to them years down the road.

Day Five -- the Finale

After cleaning up the hotels rooms and repacking all our stuff back onto the bus, we headed to Eastern Market for brunch. It's a favorite amongst DC locals -- especially the upwardly-mobile professional class. A number of students chose to wait in line for almost an hour with the other chaperones and me to order from "the crepe guy." I was worried that his sophisticated offerings would disappoint, but Miller-Boy said it was the best meal of his life (for what it's worth, I think he might have said the same thing later in the day at Ben's...)

It was bad timing that I was involved with a small crisis when Alex O. and friends bought a pig's foot and snuck it into my backpack; normally I would've appreciated the joke but it wasn't until later that I was able to mentally give them the props they deserved.

After Eastern Market, we stopped at the White House, where, as usual, the "crazy lady" was as much if not more an attraction for the kids than the mansion housing the top of our executive branch.

Then we visited the Jefferson Memorial, where we tried -- rather unsuccessfully -- to take a group photo since the company that normally takes our official group shot had canceled on us last minute.

The kids were ready then for a some non-informative time, so we spent a little while at a park where some played soccer and other games, and some just sat around and chilled (and I finally got some good candid shots of Andrew and Carl!).

We ended our time in DC at Ben's Chili Bowl -- every the local favorite of Eastern Market but catering to a pretty different clientele.