Life Is Beautiful Around the World

For the Fourth of July holiday, one of my close friends and I drove down to the DC area to visit another one of our good friends, who recently moved to Northern Virginia.

We left early Saturday morning, figuring that the bulk of the traffic would exist on Friday night, and that a lot of the people were probably leaving the city in favor of the beach, anyhow. We appeared to be correct, and so made excellent time.

After unloading our belongings, we headed off to the National Mall to attend the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, an annual and "international exposition of living cultural heritage."

The Mall was broken up into regions that represented various parts of the world; this year, there was a section for Mexico as well as Asian Pacific Americans. Within each of these regions were several tents that served food, held events, and played music corresponding to the appropriate area.

Upon arrival, our first order of business was finding somewhere to eat (of course), so we headed over to "Mexico."

I had a chicken burrito, which was about the size of a Chipotle burrito, so needless to say, I was in heaven. There was a little too much rice for my liking, but the pico de gallo and black beans made for a perfect combination.

After a scrumptious meal, we headed down the Mall to check out the other regions. In "Asia," we went under a tent and watched breakdancers from Lao.

Over in another area of the continent, there was a woman cooking some Vietnamese cuisine; the set up in this tent was fantastic, as there was a mirror hanging above her so the audience could see what she was doing.

We also took a few moments to sign a wooden sculpture that served as a guest book. On it, they requested that we write our first name and word that describes us—vertically, so as to serve as a reminder that many Asian languages are written in this manner.

While I was signing my name, some man photographed me, and after some awkward conversation, led me to believe that my picture was going to end up in the Smithsonian archives. I guess I'll never really know if he's serious.

All in all, the festival was a fun experience and a nice departure from the standard tourism of DC. Assuming that the specifics of the festival change slightly on an annual basis, I'd definitely consider attending it annually, were I a resident of the city.