I’ve been trying to find a good day to take off work for a little while now.  I haven’t taken a day off this year, and while that isn’t a lot of time, it has been rather stressful at work and a day off has been much needed.  I was planning to take off a day a couple weeks ago, but then I got pressed into service on a project that had a major deadline moved up on them.  A  few weeks of work on that behind me, I planned to take off Monday, but I needed to finish up a document for another task that had fallen in my lap.  So Tuesday was the day, but an executive meeting got called and I needed to be at work.

So finally, Wednesday was the day…  until about 2:45 PM on Tuesday, when one of my customers called and needed something picked up the next morning.  Rather than postponing my day once again, I decided to give up a few morning hours to play courier.  After that, I finally got on my way.  I headed off to see the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.  I’ve been meaning to go for the past few years, but just hadn’t gotten around to it.

Now, I love public transportation.  Especially with the sleep deficit that a two-year-old and three-month-old provide, not having to pay attention or even stay awake while getting somewhere is a major bonus (not to mention the traffic avoidance due to HOV usage and cost savings versus driving).  All that being said, sometimes public transportation can be a little tedious.  Witness my travel yesterday:

• To work: drive, bus, train, train, walk
• Work to National Cathedral:  walk, train, train, bus, walk
• National Cathedral to home: walk, bus, train, train, bus, drive

Even the next morning, it’s a little exhausting just looking at that list.  When you add in the dead time waiting for the next train or bus, it gets even worse.  I left work about 10:30 AM and got home about 3:15 PM.  Over that 4:45 period, I would (generously) estimate that I spent 90 minutes at the cathedral, walking around and taking pictures. So there was a lot of lost time for me yesterday.

Some of it was my fault, as I waited around needlessly for almost ten extra minutes after I foolishly skipped a train on a different line that would have taken me where I wanted to go.

Other times, I feel like the system let me down.  When I finally got out of the Metro system and staring to look for the bus that would take me to National Cathedral, I had no end of problems.  The schedule/map in the Metro station was quite clear that I needed to find bus stop G for the route I needed.  There weren’t any obvious pointers to the lettered stops, so I walked around for almost 15 minutes in a big (Dupont) circle trying to find this stop.  After seeing my bus go by a block away, I traced the route I saw it on and found a stop at which to wait (costing me an extra 15 minutes, at least).

All the other stuff aside, I did make it to the cathedral, walked around, and took pictures.  I’ve always enjoyed walking around churches.  I even took a Gothic Cathedrals class in college to learn more about them (and get a necessary humanities credit for graduation).  On my two trips to Europe, visiting churches has always been part of experiencing any city.  Even when I travel inside the US and Canada, I’ve sought out churches to visit.

According to the brochure, National Cathedral is the sixth largest cathedral in the world.  Unfortunately, I felt none of the majesty of other cathedrals I’ve seen my travels. I don’t know why that is exactly.  Maybe it’s because it wasn’t a Catholic church, and therefore I didn’t feel as strong a connection to it.  Maybe it’s because it’s so young (only completed in 2000), that it just doesn’t feel weathered or broken in yet.  It really was kind of sterile.  Pretty, but sterile.

Anyway, I did get a few photos I liked.  One heads this post, and others can be found at jvasak.photoshop.com.  I’m testing that out as a place to drop early proofs as I work on final edits with a little more care.