I haven't gotten to talk about my trip to Washington D.C., so I figured I might as well post it here.
7-22-07
We left on this morning and got there at about 6:00 that evening at the L'Enfant Plaza Hotel (there's a picture from google that I found of the front (west)). It had this cool glass pyramid like the one that's the entrance to the Louvre that I remember from my time in France. It looked really pretty at night. They had all these lights shine out from the inside of it like in the picture.
All the museums had closed by that time, so we didn't do a lot interesting today, but we did walk down to the waterfront for dinner. They had huge crates of the day's catches. We could just go down and choose from the crates what we wanted, and then they would cook it for us.
7-23-07
Today we first went to the National Museum of Natural History. It's part of the Smithonian Institution like most other museums in D.C., so it was well set up. We went through the Hall of Mammals, the Dinosaur Exhibit, and the Rocks and Gems Exhibit. the Hall of Mammals was by far the best. They had some really cute, exotic squirrel species. The Dinsosaurs were pretty good too. They had a giant sloth skeleton that was enormous. It's odd to think of the small sloths we have today as that size. In Rock and Gems the main thing was the Tiffany Diamond which was on temporary display. Luckily we planned our trip at the right time, so we got to see that. We went for lunch at the Department of Agriculture. They had some really nice cafes - so that's where our tax dollars go... In the afternoon we went to the National Air and Space Museum (another Smithonian member). That was the most crowded of all the museums. I personally didn't like it as well as the Natural History Museum, but I guess you kind of have to be into the World War thing. They had some flight simulators, but those had 45 minute waits, so we decided against that. We went swimming in the hotel pool when we got back.
7-24-07
Today was our earliest wake-up. We left in pairs this morning. Jon and Mom went to the Washington Monument to get tickets for that afternoon at 1:00. Dad and I went to the Bureau of Engraving to do the same for 10:00. We had some big lines. I think Dad and I arrived at the Bureau at about 8:00. So we did that tour at the Bureau, which was pretty cool. If you've ever seen $32 million sitting in front of you, you'll know what I mean! Lunch was at the Department of Agriculture again, which was OK with me, because it really was a spectacular cafeteria (or at least as spectacular as a cafeteria can get). We still had some time after lunch to do something before the Washington Monument tour, so we went back to the Natural History Museum. We liked the Hall of Mammals so much we decided to do it again. We also went to the IMAX theatre this time and saw "Lions". It was a great show! By now it was time to go to the Monument for our tour. That was one of favorites probably for the whole trip. Isn't funny how the world's tallest obelisk isn't in Egypt? Go figure. And then the whole idea of obelisk, one of the world's most blatant Pagan symbols, is the centerpiece of St. Peters Square in the Vatican, too. Go figure... So anyway, the top had eight windows, two on each of the fours sides you could look out. This was the closest we ever got to the White House. Something odd I learned was actually that the top is made of aluminum, because when it was being built aluminum's value rivaled that of silver. There was no cheap way to mine it at that time. After that we went back down we decided to take a "little" excursion to Chinatown. However, there are no longer any Asian people in Chinatown oddly enough. They've all started successful businesses and moved out of the ghetto. I put "little" in quotes, because we thought would be a little walk ended up being a lot larger than what we thought it would be. On the way back we split up. Jon and Dad went back to the hotel, and Mom and I went on to the National Postal Museum (you guessed it... another Smithsonian). It was mostly for her, because she collects stamps and is interested in that. Frankly, I'm not, but she needed someone to go along with her, so I volunteered. There wasn't really anything notable there, besides that being the place where I bought Math and the Mona Lisa. If you look at that cover again you can see the Smithsonian logo.
7-25-07
Today was our last day spent in D.C., because tomorrow would just be driving home. Today we first went to the National Zoo (Smithsonian). That was the absolute best part of the trip. Here are just some the animals we saw: Cheetahs, Red Pandas, Giant Pandas, Otters, Bengal Tigers, Lions, Golden Lion Tamarins, Lowland Gorillas, and then of course the best Reptile House and Mammal House I've ever been in. The next thing was the Library of Congress. That was a little disappointing, because from the balcony where you would normally look down and across the whole open library you could only see mostly curtains because they were doing some repair. You couldn't see more than 100 feet. The exhibits were pretty good, though still. Then we went to the National Archives and saw the Magna Carta, Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, and U.S. Constitution. That was good, but a pretty long wait.
That was pretty much the whole trip. I thought it was good, but there have been better ones. I'm still not over Europe.
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