Union Station

Every day I purposely exit the metro in Union Station so that I get to walk through the inside of Union Station. I have several reasons for doing this.

1. So that I can stay out of the cold weather for as long as possible- walking through Union Station is at least an entire block that I can preserve the feeling in my fingers, toes, and ears.
2. To see the gobs of 8th graders from all over the country making their required pilgrimage to our nation's capitol. I always know who they are by their matching brightly colored t shirts and the ridiculous cliques of hip girls, nerdy boys, fat goths, etc. They are extremely hard to walk around because they won't split up their clique pack for anything. They also have no idea about the flow of foot traffic.
3. To see the tourists in general. They are always taking pictures of the ceiling or videotaping their girlfriend and it's fun to walk by them really fast with a scowl. "Silly tourists, I work here! Get out of my way." This is also fun to do with the hordes of 8th graders.
4. Window shopping. On my path out of Union Station I pass by an Au Bon Pan (look at the bread and pastries), a Borders, a Nine West (love the shoe displays), an Origins, The Body Shop, a Swarovski crystal store (right now they have a display of crystal gorillas?) a chocolate store, and a weird cart that sells coffee. Some days I enjoy the whiff of perfume waifting from The Body Shop but some days it makes me really nauseous.
   

I am sad because at Christmas when I would come out of the train part and into the big hall there was a HUGE Christmas tree glowing. It made me so happy. There was also a model train set, a player piano, and three giant (GIANT) wreaths out front. Now all that is gone. Yesterday they took down the wreaths and were hammering and fussing to take the train apart. I come out expecting to see the Christmas tree now and since it's not there I get so disappointed.