004 Washington Day 2

Washington is pretty big and the sightseeings are all spread out. The best way to plan your day is to take one of those hop on, hop off tours. There’s two of them. One is 20 dollar, the other 32 dollar (goes a little bit further). However, when I decided to do that it was already past 1 pm and the ticket sales people actually talked me out of doing the tour. I took the metro to the White House again, the north side this time, and then walked my way to the Washington monument. It’s basically nothing more than an obelisk. I wanted to take the elevator up, but the ticket booth was already closed. So get there in the morning if you want to go up! I decided to walk around the Mall, the name given to the huge park that connects the Capitol building with the Lincoln Memorial in the far end. I really wanted to see the Lincoln memorial as I somehow associate that with the capital. Especially since the underrated remake of Planet Of The Apes ended there. There’s no public transport getting you there. No metro, no bus. You either have to take one of those tours or walk!

The Lincoln Memorial itself I impressive, but it looks just like you expect it to look and there’s not much going on around it. I’m sure in the summer it’s filled with tourists and students laying in the sun! There’s a small museum there as well but the nicest thing is that you have a great view of the Washington Monument, being reflected in the pool that connects both monuments. Nearby you also have the memorials of the victims of the Vietnam war and the Korean war. There’s also a somewhat boring memorial for the victims of the Second World War. Anyways, there’s plenty of memorials and statues. I first started to take pictures of them, but after a day I had enough of them. I basically did a whole lot of walking in Washington, DC which I didn’t mind, but it would have been nicer if they had public transport to the Lincoln Memorial.

The next day I went back with the commuter bus, only to find out that there’s little to do before 11 am. All museums open late! And I was basically stuck in DC. I headed to the FBI building first, as I know someone who had visited the place. Unfortunately, the FBI no longer allows visitors. Another museum that I wanted to visit was ‘closed for renovation’. It was the American History museum, which appealed to me more than the art museums or the technical museum. I wanted to visit the National Portrait Gallery as well and the Spy museum, but they opened even later than 11 am. I ended up going inside of the Fort Theatre, where Lincoln was murder. Across the street there’s the house, where Lincoln died after being brought there. It’s all about Lincoln and Washington in DC. Not many other presidents are omnipresent there. I found it strange that I didn’t see anything of Bill Clinton. Not one single things reminded me of his legacy. Bush however is everywhere, which is a bit strange as 70 percent of the people in DC voted Democrat.

I took the metro to Foggy Bottom, which is the area around the white house and which I only remember because it was one of the questions in our vocabulary test at university and almost the entire class had no idea what it was. Anyways, it’s the last stop in DC and from there I walked to Georgetown, which is supposed to be the charming area of the city. Of course, it was called again and when I walked to the little Harbour front I didn’t see much charm. Nobody was out there, no life at all, all the sidewalk and river front bars were closed. But the rest of Georgetown was a bit more lively. There’s two shopping streets, with the usual stores (Barnes & Nobles, Urban Outfitters, Gap) and behind those streets you have a nice quiet residential area with beautiful building. At least for Americans. There’s this ‘old stone house’, which is the tourist draw of the street. But I passed it a few times not noticing there was anything old about it. I liked the canal that run there. I didn’t expect to see a small canal in the big city. But to be really honest, Georgetown wasn’t a gem. I’m sure it’s all more bustling in the summer, but I think I expected more of a student neighbourhood. I still don’t know where the second hand book and record stores are for instance. On my way to Georgetown, I did meet a nice guy who walked a bit with me. I love that about visiting the states, you always end up meeting people who like to talk to you. He suggested I also visited Dupont Circle neighbourhood, as there were a few second hand stores there. I did wanted to go to that place, but it was already pas 1.30 am and I wanted to visit a museum as well.

I also lost a lot of time in a travel agent store. STA travel. I ended up being the first ‘customer’ of a trainee, who just totally sucked. I came in with questions about Puerto Rico and Belize, but he started suggesting trips to Hawaii. Duh! Anyways, the women who was supervising him was cool and talked a bit about Belize, how she was robbed at gunpoint near the border with Guatemala. But that’s the ‘adventure’, she added. Yeah, cool, but I have a laptop now. I was a bit tired of walking so I took a bus back to the centre. Funnily enough it was very easy to get on the bus from Georgetown, although every single person I had asked told me it was impossible to get there with the public transport. Some people just don’t know their city I guess. Anyways, the bus broke down and we had to wait for another bus to pick us up.

There are several museums in Washington and most of them are free. Especially the Smithsonian museums, which is a name given to all the museums that used to belong to one person who gave his collection to the government. High on the wish lists of tourists is the technical museum, but I couldn’t care less. I ended up going to the National Gallery of Art. There’s two buildings, a west and an east building, which have a vast collection of all kinds of paintings. I made the mistake of wanting to visit the entire museum. I should have looked at the map first and then go to the parts which really interested me. I ended up seeing too many paintings and sculpture from European artists. None of them are master pieces and the visit started to bore me a bit, apart from seeing Rubens and Rembrandt! There was actually an extra exhibition on sketches by Rembrandt. I was also impressed by the work of Degas, who I was unfamiliar with. I especially liked his sculptures of ballerina’s. I had made an appointment with Amy, who was on my last trip in December and she wanted to meet quite early, so I had to rush through the building. Never good! That’s why I need to go back there. I didn’t get to see much of the American artists and some of the things I saw were interesting. No San Marco squares or flower fields with medieval castles in the back. No, Americans depicts other facets of life, like the life of the native Americans. Start your visit with those sections and do the European paintings when you have time! I also didn’t have much time to spend in the modern art section, although I did one floor upon entering the museum, which impressed me a lot. I actually like Modern art. I was surprised to like the paintings of Pollock. I guess I was not interested in his work because I don’t like Ed Harris who portrays him in his directorial debut, but I just found myself attracted to his paintings. There was also a painting from a Flemish artist, whose name I forgot, but was a collection of muscles glued together. I loved that. And of course you have Warhol and Liechtenstein, who is more famous the country with the same name. Yeah, I could have spent more time there.

I had an appointment with Amy though, who was one of the most charming people I had on my tours last year. Amy is maybe 27 or so and she’s married to Chad, who’s 31. they were travelling with their parents and Chad’s brother and sister-in-laws; The six of them were really cool and I took the kids out for some Belgian beer tasting in Nijmegen of all places! That was fun. Amy was very excited in talking about Washington DC. She asked me where I wanted to go and we headed to Dupont Circle. We didn’t really walk around there, but went into this cool book store with a restaurant in the back. An insider tip! For 15 bucks we got three different appetizers brought to us on three separate plates on a stack. A bit like tapas, but then in huge portions. We shared quesadillas, the house tacos with guacamole and some buffalo wings. It was a lot. Also cool was the refills of course. I drank Dr Pepper, but she came to refill it three times. Nice place. Amy is cool. We talked a lot. Funnily enough, I thought she worked in the Smithsonian building, but she works in the National Portrait Museum where I stood earlier in the morning for a closed door. Next time, she’ll let me in and I’ll have the museum for myself. Yeah, that sounds cool.