Three Beautiful Things 08/30/14: Pastry at Paul, Billy Collins Reading, D.C. Pictures

1.  I boarded the Yellow Line train and headed straight to Archives/Navy Memorial because at that stop I can purchase a pastry and cup of coffee at Paul and that's just what I did:  a chocolate and almond croissant and a cup of coffee.

2.  Breakfast snack eaten, I headed up 7th Street to the Library of Congress Festival of Books at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, just past Mt. Vernon Square, and was part of the crowd standing in a jam packed standing room only audience in a huge room.  We squeezed in to hear poet Billy Collins read from his work for about forty minutes and it was awesome.  Just awesome.  I could have stuck around and heard a variety of other writers, but I didn't want any other voices in my head nor any other works interfering with Billy Collins.  I dug him that much.

3.  For the first time since arriving in the D. C. metropolitan area, I took pictures while walking around in Washington, D. C. itself.  Today, I took pictures with my inconspicuous Canon S95 and felt some of that surge of excitement I feel when taking pictures in a city.  Here are some of my pictures.  The last two are of the Kogod Courtyard that sits between the National Portrait Gallery/American Art Museum.  If you like to see more of my Washington D. C. pictures from today, go here.