Around the World Embassy Tour

One of the many perks of living in Washington, D.C. is the "Embassy Tour" event. Once a year on a Saturday in May the European Union embassies open their doors to the public, and then the next Saturday the rest of the embassies do the same. They have food and drink samples, live music, art exhibits, information about their countries, and opportunities to meet the ambassadors and others from the country. OF course, not all of the embassies are able to participate each year, and not all of the embassies have food, but it is still an amazing experience to go and visit the embassies. If any of you are ever out in DC in May, I would highly recommend going online and looking this event up.

The best thing about the embassy tour is the free shuttle service that runs between the embassy route. I'm telling you, this thing is awesome!

The first week I went to the European Embassies: specifically Sweden, France, Germany, Denmark, and Italy. With so many embassies open you are hard-pressed to hit them all between 10 am-4 pm, so it is best to look at the routes (the embassies are spread all over the city) and pick which ones you want to hit.

EU open embassies map

First was Sweden. They had cheese, crackers, and delicious jellies for sample.

One of the best parts of the Swedish embassy was the view from the roof.

This has nothing to do with the embassies but I saw this little restaurant (?) while on the shuttle and threw it in for my sister Jocilyn. It's an inside joke :)

Next was France. France and Germany have quite big embassies (I think Germany had the biggest embassy yard of all the embassies I went to) and so they had a little more room to spread out and have booths of information about French language schools, French companies, etc.

They also had French cheese and bread.

The German embassy, since it was so big, had lots of room to show off. Here is a German table setting (?)

And a "ladies' sitting room"

And remnants of the Jewish presence in Germany.

This man and woman were playing German songs on these. Awesome.

Another cool thing about the Germany embassy were these cardboard cut-outs of famous sites in Germany with an explanation of what it is next to it. This way, you almost felt like you were walking through Germany!

The Germany embassy also gave out free chocolates. Delicious, lush, liquor truffles. You can bet that I got a few strange looks when I asked for the (non-alcoholic) bunny-shaped children's chocolate.

Denmark was kind of lame. Sorry. The only food available was certainly not free, and they didn't have much in the way of booths. They did, however, have a Lego booth (were legos invented in Denmark?) and they also had a free bathroom, which I definitely took advantage of.

Italy was a must-see because my friend Sarah served her mission there. Again, I was disappointed by the lack of free food (they had gelatto for $4 a cup and $6 sandwiches!) but the inside of the Italian embassy was awesome.

This is a picture of one of the photos on display in the Italian embassy. Doesn't it almost look like I took this picture live?

The inside of the Italian Embassy. Isn't it so artistic?

What else would be on display at the Italian embassy than a Ferrari? There were 3 other cars there (including the mini in the next picture), but I was most interested in the red (and black) Ferraris.

Isn't this color combination just beautiful?

The next week I only hit up a few more. I wanted to hit up all the Middle Eastern ones that were open, but Egypt, Saudia Arabia, and Iraq were all on different sides of the city.

Map of the open non-EU embassies

On my way to Iraq (my Middle East embassy of choice), I hit up the Bahamas, Slovenia, and a few others.

The Bahamas embassy even had the ambassador at the door shaking everyone's hand as they came in.

A traditional mask from the Bahamas.

The Bahamas, along with several other embassies (France included), had samples of native alcoholic drinks. I naturally stood in line for the juice with the children. :)

The best embassy visit, hands down, was Iraq. Music, dancing, cultural displays, and a full lunch meal of dates, yogurt drink, chicken, pitas, hummus, and water bottles. What a dream.

Nepal, next to the Iraqi embassy, was also pretty cool. They had some beautiful displays and lots of jewelry for sale.

Too bad I won't be here next year to hit up the other embassies! Maybe I can go to the American embassy in Tel Aviv...