2008 Begins in Washington, DC

The year began with Chris working and me being too lazy to go up to his work at midnight to celebrate the new year. Probably a good thing, since there exist some embarrassing Chris pictures from that evening. On a good note. I was off more than a week from work and had plenty of time to get things a little more organized in the new apartment.

The Air and Space Museum

Eliza got into town on New Years Eve. We met the next day at the Air and Space Museum. That contraption in the photo is, I presume, a replica of what they used to land on the moon. I hope it’s a replica, seems hard to believe you could land on the moon with some PVC pipes and golden foil. Would someone explain to me why space exploration is not waste of time and money?

The museum has exhibits on the invention of flight, planes in the world wars, and commercial flights. One of the most interesting parts is the hands on activities room where they demonstrate the principles of how planes get up there. Now that I know, I’m glad I’ll be sailing on my next trip. One of the demonstrations was of gravity. There was a childlike figure dressed in a space suit that you could haul up and then drop down as quickly as possible. It looked like a form of child torture and there were quite a few brats in the room I wanted to experiment on.

DC Spanish Meetup

I have been signed up for a Spanish meetup forever, but kept finding excuses not to go. Last week I finally did and it was actually very tolerable. I was relieved to find out that it was not a thinly disguised pickup group. A couple of people were native Spanish speakers so it isn’t the blind leading the blind. I need to make sure I don’t loose all that Spanish I worked so hard for. Only bad part is it was all the way in Georgetown and, being that the metro doesn’t go out there, was a pain to get to.

Washington DC Free Movies

One of the many fabulous things about Washington DC is all the free stuff to do. There is a constant stream of film festivals and most of the museums have auditoriums that run regular films as well. This weeks movie recommendation is:

Cochochi

Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna (Y tu mamá también) have a production company called Buena Onda. Cochochi is one of their films. It is fictional, but plays like a documentary about two indigenous (Raramuri) boys from the sierra madre mountains in northern Mexico. These two boys have graduated from elementary school and go off to deliver medicine to a far off relative. Much of the film is in the indigenous language. All the actors are people from the area.

The most interesting part of the movie is how it was made. Two backpackers got lost and were found by the boys. As they spent time in the Raramuri community, they came up with the idea for the story. They had to do quite a bit of negotiating in order to get the community to agree to participate in the movie. They also had to figure out how to pay the boys without doing something that would completely distort the economic system. (They ended up giving he boys scholarships and replacing a bridge in the area that had been washed out.)

I won’t claim it is the best movie I have ever seen, but some of the cultural differences are a trip. It is hard to imagine grade school kids disappearing for days and no one panicking in the least.