You can spend a lifetime in Washington, but as I only had a week, I had to focus!
Genta and Chris lives in a satellite town to DC, McLean that is characterized by very large houses and lots of forests and greenery. Genta provided me with a ticket to the metro and directions for getting to The Mall, which runs between the Lincoln Monument and Capitol Hill and where all those monuments and places, you've seen from Washington on film and TV (except The Watergate Building) is situated. Everything is bigger than expected and it takes approximately 100 years to walk from one end to the other, so it's easy to understand why the easy accessible public shared bikes are very popular. The only place that doesn't seem larger is The White House. It actually seems smaller than expected.
Vietnam Memorial
At The Mall are most of the Smithsonian Museums also situated. For those who didn't already know (like me a couple of months ago), The Smithsonians is a gigantic research and museum foundation, which among other things run 19 museums, most of them situated in DC and all with free admission. My first thought was: free admission = boring museums. Boy, where I wrong. I spent so much time at museums during my week in DC. And Im far from finished.
I've visited the Museum of Natural History with dinosaur skeletons, gems in all shapes and sizes, stuffed animals and nature photographs.
It was, by the way, in the evolution section at this museum at a booth, where a researcher explained the differences in the steps of human evolution that a group of creationist teenagers asked him some very critical questions about the validity of evolution as a theory. I was at the same time shocked and fascinated while listening. Luckily, the researcher was used to handle and argument that sort of rubbish, but it's hard to imagine that such pure stupidity is actually walking this earth. In a weird funny way, it's sort of the best argument so far against 'survival of the fittest'...
There where lots of other museums. The museum of American History with the Star Spangled Banner, the history of slavery described through Jefferson's case, the American presidents - and their wives and an exhibition about innovation. Hirshhon is the museum for modern art with Hopper and Rodin as my highlights.
The Air and Space Museum has the Wright brothers' first airplane, Lindbergh's Spirit of Saint Louis, Apollo 11's landing shuttle etc.
And finally The Museum of American Indians, where my brain finally overloaded because of the enormous amounts of information. I still managed to learn the it was the Spaniards who reintroduced the horse to America. I must also mention the museum building itself. It is some of the most amazing architecture, I've seen for a long time! I can highly recommend visiting museums in Washington.
I did get to do other things than seeing museums. In the weekend, Genta and I went to a baseball game: Philadelphia Phillies against Washington Nationals (of course we cheered for the Nationals). Genta thought I should experience som of the real Americana. I totally agreed. It was extremely fascinating. All of it. The game itself, though the first four innings where rather boring because none of the teams managed to do a run. But then Washington had four home runs and suddenly I found myself standing and cheering loudly. The chilidogs with chili con carne, cheese fries and beer. All of it made it a perfect afternoon.
Only slightly frightened by the huge chili dog.
We had perfect seats very close to the field.
Sunday morning, before the traffic began, Genta took me on a bike tour in Washington, so I could see that DC is much more than monuments and the Smithsonian. Even if the picture shows me on the way to Capitol.
And then - New York...
Location:Wrightson Dr, McLean, USA
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