More Fun in Washington

Per my dad's request, I wrote this post. As you can see, I haven't written in a few days and there is much to catch up on. Let's start with Monday, our first full day in Washington DC. After getting ready and eating breakfast, my mom, sister, and I left (without my dad and brother) to go to the American History Museum, which we had not seen on our last trip since it was under construction at the time. At the same time, my dad and brother went to the Ford's Theater, where they got a tour of the museum there, as well as a short play about the events that happened the night that Lincoln was assassinated. While waiting for my brother and dad to meet up with us, we visited several exhibits and walked around to see the lay of the museum. The first place that we went to was the exhibit on the first ladies, which we were pretty sure that my brother would not want to see. In the exhibit, there were dresses (some inaugural, some not) displayed that were worn by the first ladies - all the way back to one of the first few. I think my favorites were Helen Taft's dress and Michelle Obama's dress, though Grace Coolidge's flapper dress was pretty cool, as well (and kind of shocking for a first lady!). Without my dad, we also saw this exhibit of pictures of the Kennedy's and one on the actual "Star Spangled Banner" that inspired the national anthem. I remember watching this really tedious video in history a few years ago on the restoration of the flag, so it was kind of cool to see the actual flag they were referring to and knowing some facts about it (though not all...it was a few years ago). When the rest of my family arrived, we visited the rest of the museum, as well as ate lunch, which took most of rest of the time the museum was open. I was looking forward to seeing the pop culture section, but it was kind of underwhelming - I didn't really know what most of the things were from, and the ruby red slippers from The Wizard of Oz weren't exactly ruby red. We did see this exhibit about Lincoln that was pretty cool, and by the time that we vacated the building, I was exhausted. But that was not the end of the day. After that, we went to the Natural History Museum to see the new setting for the Hope Diamond (it looked smaller than before) and a temporary exhibit on orchids (which was interesting, and smelled good too). While just wondering around, we saw this knitted coral reef, which I found interesting. It actually looked like a coral reef, but it was made out of yarn. I wonder how long it took for them to finish that. After visiting the gift shop (of course), we were ushered out at closing, and we then finally went back to the hotel. The next day in my marathon retelling of the events of the past few days, Tuesday, was equally exciting. We had to get up super early (5 AM!! - on spring break, no less!) because instead of having a White House tour at 10 AM, as was planned, it was moved back to seven in the morning. Apparently, there was some lunch meeting or something that prevented a bunch of the later tours from touring at that time, so they were all pushed back to the same early time. Which meant a lot of people. So not only did we have to wake up early, wait in line in drizzling rain, but the hallways and rooms were jam packed and security took forever. Fun! But even with those trials and tribulations, it was still very exciting to be actually inside the building. It was very cool, even with all the crowds. Afterwards, we walked to the White House Visitor Center around the corner, and by the time we got out, it was pouring down rain! I had to borrow a hat from my dad because I didn't have any hoods on my jacket or an umbrella. Luckily, though, that has been the only bad weather in Washington in all the time we have been here - and it soon cleared up as we went to the Capitol Building to see the Senate and House of Representatives in their respective galleries. We were lucky enough to see both the Senate (which we went to first) and the House of Representatives vote on an issue. In both cases, there were only a handful of Senators/Representatives, and as soon as the vote was announced, they began to come streaming in. I recognized some of the Senators (including my own), and actually found my representative among the crowd in the House. Pretty cool. Afterwards, we had a personal tour of the Capitol building from an aide from our representative's office - our previous planned tour had a conflict with our previously planned time for the White House tour - but not after our previously planned time for the White House was moved earlier. Yet, we still got a private tour, which was fine by me. Confusing, isn't it? On to the next day, Wednesday. Yesterday, we got to sleep in a little - at least compared with the day before. At 9:30 AM we had tickets to go up the Washington Monument, and we made it just in time. You may not have heard the story of our previous attempt to get tickets the last time we were here, but I remember it in crystal clear details. My mom and I got up early and stood in line for over half an hour only to be turned away about twenty people away from the ticket booth because there were no more tickets left. It was quite frustrating, but this time, we got our tickets a few months in advance, and as such, had no problems like that this year. Once we actually got to the top of the Washington Monument and saw the great view, all painful memories were forgotten. Seriously, if you haven't been up there, you should (if you can get tickets). Since nothing can be taller than the Washington Monument, you could see for all over. It was nice, though there were some annoying school groups present there. After seeing the Washington Monument, we walked around to the different monuments. It was really beautiful outside, what with the cherry trees blossoming, the sun finally shining, and it being warm. Construction around the reflection pool did detract from the view, but it didn't affect me that much. After eating lunch at the National Gallery of Art (where there were some difficulties), we surprisingly got into the two supposedly most difficult museums to get into: the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and the Holocaust Museum. Both were pretty cool, but I'm not really sure why the Bureau of Printing and Engraving is so hard to get into. Apparently people line up at 6 AM to get tickets. We didn't stand in any line, and still got some tickets - the same with the Holocaust Museum (though to the person behind us, they said they were sold out). The Holocaust Museum was very interesting, even though I was ushered out when the museum closed and before I was even close to finishing going through. Maybe I'll be able to go back. And finally on to today. Today we went to several places. First was the Supreme Court building, where we got to go into the court room, where a tour guide told us about different aspects of the building and the Justice Branch. After eating a freshly made meatball sub at the cafe there, we went back to the National Gallery of Art for the Gauguin exhibit they have there. I must say, though Gauguin is not my favorite artist, I did like the exhibit. It had paintings and carvings and statues from all aspects from his life and I knew some of the french that he had on his paintings!! It was very cool to see paintings that I have seen before and recognized right in front of my eyes. After that, we went to this Voice of America tour. For those who do not know, Voice of America is a government run news channel that broadcasts in countries around the world without democratic governments and leaders to give an accurate and unbiased report of the news. As cool as that sounds, the tour itself wasn't that interesting or even good. It was kind of boring and didn't really go into details. And finally, the last place we went was back to the National Gallery of Art to see an exhibit on Venice artists, while my mom went to the National Native American Museum. And that's it for my events for the day, though my parents did go to a free concert at the Kennedy Center. But let's cross our fingers that this very probable government shutdown does not affect our plans.

Just Keep Reading...

Note: Forgive spelling mistakes - the spell check isn't working. Because of technical and internetal (if that isn't a word, it is now) difficulties, I haven't been able to connect to the internet and post my latest adventures! But I promise you, I will be faithful to the account. Anyway, the last few days have been very exciting. On Friday, we went to the Andy Warhol Museum, which was weird. And when I say weird, I really mean it. Not only was there a room full of silver balloons floating around, but also there was a painting that he peed on to creating different oxidation patterns in the copper-based paint. We couldn't spent much time there becuase of the study abroad meeting, as well as a meeting about the honors college (on the 36th floor of the Cathedral of Learning - great view!!) at the University of Pittsburgh, but that was fine with me. I didn't really mind leaving the "vaguely porongraphic" videos and paitings being shown (my mom's words, not my own). After that hectic schedule, we left the city of Pittsburgh and drove for about two hours to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. On our way out though, we were hoping to get some ice cream as a treat/lunch substitute, but all our plans were thwarted. We went to three ice cream stores that were on this phamplet and then on the GPS, and all were out of business, or at least moved. We finally resigned and went to this Ben and Jerry's near where the last store was supposed to be. As soon as we got within a mile or so of the actual town, there were differnt markers and cannons and such poping up every few feet. It was pretty cool. Once we got into town and settled down in the place we were staying in - the Inn on Lincoln Square (which is the town square of Gettysburg...I think...), we walked around and then went to the restaurant that the innkeeper had suggested, which was across the sqaure/round-about. There was a few minute wait so my mom, sister, and I went and walked around while my dad and brother stayed in the restaurant waiting. Unfortunatly, the store we were looking for was closed, and so we turned around to go back to the restaurant. By the time we got back to the restaurant, we were being seated. I got a Hawaiian sandwich on a pretzel roll, and we got onion rings and pretzel bites for an appitizer. The food there were pretty good, but not superb. But for some reason, we were so stuffed that both my dad and I only ate half of our sandwiches, and my mom, sister, and brother (who had only two pizzas between them) only ate like one piece each, and as a result, had a lot of leftovers. The next day was our tour of Gettysburg. We drove out to the visiter's center, where our tour guide (I think his name was Frank) met us. The way the tour worked was that he drove our car around the different areas of the battle, all the while expalining what we were seeing. Though I can't comment on the bus or self-guided tours, I can imagine that they weren't nearly as nice asd the arrangement we had. Not only could we stop where we wanted to to take pictures, but the tour was sort of personalized - beforehand, my mom had told him that we were from Michigan, so he pointed out the different monuments commemeerating the Michigan regiments that fought there, which was cool. I think my favorite place was the field where Pickett's Charge took place (though, now I know it should be more accurately called Pickett-Pettigrew Charge) and Little Round Top, a hill where a lot of fighting happened on the second day (I think...). From the top, you could see all around you, and it was easy to understand why it was such a strategic location to be in control of. After the tour of the battlefield itself, we went and viewed the museum at the visitor's center. There was so much information to absorb that I soon became confused about the different people involved, as well as the dates, and I lagged behind the rest of my family (by at least thirty minutes, which annoyed them. What can I say - I was interested.). I haven't really been that interested in the Civil War beforehand, but after seeing this, my interest has been piqued and I want to know more. After leaving the museum after being there for several hours, my family and I ate lunch at a french bistro in town. The food was only okay, the waiter was weirdly complacent, and there was a bridal or baby shower taking up half of the restaurant, so our expirence there was so-so. We did get some really delicious chocolate mousse from there (for desert that night), so I guess that comensated for the rest of our expirence. We didn't have anything else planned, so we dropped my brother off at our rooms, and then saw the cemetary where Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Adress, then walked around town. That was the extent of what we on Saturday. After returning to our rooms, we warmed up the leftovers from the night before, rented a movie, and ate desert. The movie we saw was The Tourist with Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie, and I really enjoyed it, despite the bad reviews that I remember from when the movie came out. It was nice for one night to just hang out and relax instead of traversing all over. On Sunday, we got to sleep in a little, and then we drove the few hour drive to Arlington Cemetary on our way to Washington DC. I have never been here before, so just the sight of all the graves streching on for what seems to forever was awe-inspiring. Finally, after days of cold and wind, it was a nice out, which was good since we walked all over to visit the unknown soldier's tomb, the Kennedy graves, and Arlington House (which needs a lot of work). I actually got a little bit of a sunburn on my face from all the sun. By the time we checked in at the hotel we are currently staying in, I was ready to be done for the night, but I was overruled. We got groceries from Trader Joe's, and then (after dropping them off) went out to eat at Pizza Paridiso, and then we had to go shopping!!Though, I have to concede that the pizza was delicious - I shared a roasted garlic pizza with my mom. Like the name says, it was like paradice. The few hours after that shopping, not so much. By that time, I was tired and cranky and ready to go back to the room, so I sat outside on the curb with my dad. Several old people stared at me weirdly, like I was homeless or something, and we counted up to ten languages passing us. Fun times. Until the next thrilling instalment!