20 May 2010
The sun was out in full force today so we thought we’d head back to the White House to see if we could see any more of it besides tarpaulin and security guards. Kinda. We couldn’t really get that much closer but at least we did get to see the front without requiring binoculars. Mind you, I think Google Street View gives a better view.
From there we went back to the National Air and Space Museum to see the last couple of galleries that had been closed early on Tuesday. For me, the highlight of this was seeing a Cray 1! If that doesn’t mean anything to you, that’s fine. I’m pleased, anyway.
I then spent my entire year’s allowance of ‘time sitting in the sun’ while Jenni wandered round the outside of the National Museum of the American Indian (about 10 minutes in total). It’s an oddly shaped building whose design (in my opinion) is half way between ‘an organic synergy between man and nature’ and ‘a mostly melted candle’.
After that, we took a wander up round Capitol Hill where we saw a small crowd of protesters exercising their right to protest. Unfortunately, the leader of the chanting had a megaphone but there weren’t enough protesters to answer back at the same volume. This ended up with a rather disappointing situation.
“What do we want?”
“…”
“When do we want it?”
“…”
“2, 4, 6, 8…”
“something-something, mumble-ate “
They seemed happy, though, and at least they were out getting some sun.
After working in the St Andrews University Library for 4 years, it was a given certainty that we’d have to make a visit to the Library of Congress. Fairly sure I still know most of the classification system off by heart (which would be RC667 - Cardiology). That was fun. They also had quite a nice interactive digital tour-guide personalised visit system so I got to geek about that for a while, too.
Our next stop was the National Postal Museum which was a lot more interesting than I thought it would be. Jenni has been talking about it for years and I would have to agree with her that it’s actually a very interesting subject. It isn’t however, as good a museum as the International Spy Museum. That was our final museum of the trip. We were there for the entire afternoon and still had to rush at the end as they tried to kick us out. It is a great museum to visit. It’s private so you will need to pay but it’s worth it.
— Simon
