Jo had a business trip to Washington DC scheduled for Monday and Tuesday this week and I was looking for some special trip to surprise her with for her upcoming birthday. So we decided to take a long weekend in DC since I couldn't make a four day trip to Paris work out time wise or financially. We spent the time while she wasn't working trying to tour memorials and museums that we hadn't seen in our previous trips. It is amazing how many new places have opened since I was last there in the early 90's. We especially enjoyed our visits to the Postal Museum and the Newseum, both of which surprised us with the breadth of their collections and the interesting way they were displayed. Along the way, we also managed to take in the Botanic Gardens, Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Castle, White House visitor center, Capitol visitor center, Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Holocaust Museum, American History Museum, and the Spy Museum. I also got to see the WWII memorial for the first time and we both finally made it all the way out to the Jefferson memorial. We also saw the Korean War memorial, Lincoln memorial, Roosevelt memorial, MLK memorial, and the Navy memorial. We spent most of one morning doing memorial tours.
Since Jo had to work on Monday and Tuesday, I spent some of the time taking tours of the Capitol building and the White House. Unfortunately, Barack and family weren't there to greet us. It was my first back to Washington since the early 90's and it was interesting to see how much access has been restricted since all the terror incidents over the last decade. The last time we toured the Capitol we could pretty much wander anywhere on the first floor, now you have to take a tour and it shows you much less. Same is true at the White House. It is somewhat sad that the world has become a scarier place requiring all this extra security to keep people and buildings safe.
The final highlight was getting to see the Capitol Steps perform. This is a comedy group that makes fun of our politicians for all the funny things they manage to do. Also, they routinely skewer both parties so it isn't one sided. We were laughing so hard at one point, we were crying. If they are ever playing near you, we would recommend taking in the show.
To quickly summarize, we had a really great five days in Washington, with perfect weather, lots of cool museums to see and information to take in, and delicious food to enjoy. But we both came home foot sore and a bit tired from all the walking and standing in museums we did.
Oh, a few last thoughts, we decided that to make the visits to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing especially exciting, that they should randomly give out one of the sheets of 32 one hundred dollar bills to one of the visitors (say once or twice a month). Would really boost the popularity of the tour, wouldn't cost much given the size of our deficit, and how much more intriguing the tour would be! Other fun fact, I found out that the president has to pay for the food that the first family's food eats (state dinners and the like are picked up by the government). It seems to me kind of cheap on our part to elect the president, give him this really nice house to live in, require him to be on call 24 hours a day, and then stick him or her with the bill for his food. Seriously, can't this country afford to feed a family of four or five at the White House for four years? Buy one less cruise missile and we probably could cover all the president's food since Hoover was in the White House. Enough ranting for one blog.
No comments:
Post a Comment