It's been a busy couple of weeks around these parts, with some major grad. school summer class deadlines, hence the radio silence.

I'm hoping things will settle down in the next couple weeks, but in the meantime, I just wanted to pop in and tell you about the coolest thing I've done since I've lived in DC.

Last Friday night, a friend of mine had an extra ticket to the Evening Parade at the Marine Corps Barracks in DC. The Evening Parade features performances by the President and Commandant's bands, think lots of patriotic tunes like "Stars and Stripes Forever" and "Proud to be an American," the silent drill platoon and of course a special appearance by the Barracks mascot, an English bulldog named Chesty. (Fun fact I learned: Whenever a band plays at a presidential event it's the Marine Corps band. I had no idea)


The is the only photo I took the whole night. It's one of two Star Spangled Banners. This one hangs at the Marine Barracks in DC, the other one is at Fort McHenry in Baltimore that inspired the National Anthem.

The Evening Parade is open to the general public. Anyone can request tickets to go, but my friend had a special VIP ticket -- which meant we got to hang out in the officers club before and after the parade.

That part was kind of cool, and I swear if they re-made Top Gun in 2015, the bar scenes would have been exactly what I witnessed on Friday -- a bunch of military guys, rocking out to T. Swift.

But anyway, the really awesome part about the whole night was obviously the parade itself. The perfect precision of the marching and the music was seriously awe-inspiring.

Plus there are just no words to describe how cool it was to watch the silent drill platoon perform with their rifles. There were hundreds of people packed into bleachers at the Barracks, and it was dead silent except for the sounds of the rifles hitting the ground or the Marines' hands.

I should have taken a video or something, but I didn't, so here's one from two years ago that I found on YouTube so you can get a sense of what it's like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXa39XyP6q8

It started pouring for a little bit while we were there, and no one really seemed to mind. You could just tell everyone was pretty captivated by what was happening right in front of them.

You know it's cool if I'm not even pulling out my phone to take pictures.

Definitely the coolest thing I've done since I've lived here. If you're in DC, I highly recommend checking it out. It's every Friday night in the summer.