Last night, a friend forwarded me this column from the Washington Post.  I definitely encourage you to read it on your own.  The man who forwarded to me, I only know him as “VT Dad,” which is how he he signed off his e-mail, appended a note to his link to the article.

Justin – Thought you might find this column of interest, especially in light of your 11 January blog entry. Keep up the great work. A VT Dad….

He is referring to this blog post from last week that was written as I had been inundated with several unique, inspirational “look at the world differently” kinds of stories. The Post article is no exception – I was reminded of this idea, this stop and embrace your environment kind of mentality, as I had lunch with a new friend just yesterday.  She was a friend of a college friend, and they had met in France.  She is actually from Poland and came to the states to visit, and my friend had taken her across D.C. to get sight seeing.  She constantly talked about how impressed, in a bad way, she was that we didn’t know D.C. any better than we did. For example, Namrata tells me about how they went to the zoo to see pandas and I exclaimed,

I’ve never been to the D.C. zoo. Where is it?

I also began to recall how I took my first visit to the White House just weeks ago. Obviously, I’m guilty of it too.  There really is so much art and entertainment that I don’t always take the opportunity to enjoy whether it’s in Blacksburg or in D.C. In Europe, apparently people come to visit you and you could pick out numerous attractions int he area to go see, because of course there is such great history but also you, as a local, know your area very well.  For me, whenever I move to a new locality I rely on iPhone apps and locals to tell me about the local hotspots.  It makes me thirst for Europe, to really see and understand all of their un-handicapped-accessible history. But no really, I think that’s on my bucket list – to find a way to travel there and do so reasonably independently.

I think it’s a very interesting, unique, and different mindset – but it IS very important to stop for a moment and really embrace, enjoy, and appreciate the environment around you.  After all, you ARE living in it!

Side note: I’m sitting in a local Barnes & Noble as I write this post, and Draw a Crowd by Ben Folds Five is the song of choice – I’m pretty sure it’s an entire Ben Folds playlist. He’s one of my favorite pianists, alongside Gavin DeGraw. Check them out, especially DeGraw’s 2003 album Chariot, if you haven’t before.  The song off of that album titled “More Than Anyone” has been on repeat at least 30 times in the past 3 days for me.  It’s feeling pretty special.  But both artists are definitely music for all ages.

Also, thanks to VT Dad for reading and enjoying!