DC Embassy Open Houses, Flowers, and Museums
May 2024
A year ago friend Diane, Executive
Director of Colonie Senior Service Centers, where I’m on the Board of Directors
and Marjorie has given & taken art classes and other activities, told us
about spring open houses in embassies in Washington. It sounded lovely, so I
started looking into options for this year, then learned Diane is organizing a
group tour (initially for 10, grew to 23). She’s arranging flights & hotel.
We signed right up. Diane has a planning meeting 3 weeks beforehand with
various tips and a list of 51 embassies then set to be open.
These open houses are part of Passport
DC, a month-long “journey around the world.” Celebrated annually in May, International
Cultural Awareness Month in Washington, Passport DC is 31 days of programming
by embassies and other cultural institutions. DC is home to more than 175 embassies, the 2nd-highest
in one city in the world. [No, we won’t try to see them all!] During Around the World Embassy Tour,
embassies from multiple non-European Union countries will host open houses on
May 4 for visitors to learn about cultures & and traditions thru
food, fashion, arts & music, etc. Passport DC also features a Flower Mart &
International Floral Exhibit at the National
Cathedral. On following weekends EU & then Asian embassies will host
visitors. These are all free events open to the public.
Spring is
pretty much in full swing around Albany, tulips up in Washington Park, trees
& azaleas blooming on the UAlbany campus. It’ll be interesting to see what
Washington looks like. The National Cherry Blossom Festival in DC ended April
14th, but maybe some will still be blooming. Temps in DC have been
80s, even 90s, so we’ll pack light. We neaten up the house some for son Matt’s
visit over the weekend, here to pack up grandson William at the end of his sophomore
semester at Siena. Marjorie leaves Matt a “to-do list,” mostly in the garden;
Matt’s become quite the gardener around their building in Queens.
