Nerd's Eye View: DC: The Sights

Finally, an update on my time in DC! I've decided to roll out my blogging on this experience in a few phases, first a post on the sights I've seen, and then later will come food, my internship, and lastly some general observations. So keep your eyes peeled for those posts in the future!

But for now, the sights. There are a lot of great things to see and do in DC, including a ton of national monuments as well as 19 Smithsonian museums and the national zoo, and that's only the tip of the iceberg. I've done a lot over the past week, but I feel like there's still so much more to do!

One of the many war scenes around the WWII memorial

I've been surprised by the depth of the experience offered by the national monuments. I was expecting to see them all in a few hours, but now I've spent two full evenings walking around them and still haven't seen them all! The World War II Memorial was the most impressive in a grand and patriotic sort of way, but I found the Korean War Memorial to be the most moving. I appreciate what the Vietnam War Memorial was trying to do, but it lost much of its impact because I'd already heard so much about it. My highlight for the war memorials was the free, personal tour I received from one of the rangers at the Korean War Memorial.

Honest Abe

As for the memorials that focused on individual dead white guys as opposed to large groups of dead people, the Lincoln Memorial was indeed very impressive, but unfortunately crawling with boy scouts. I found the Jefferson Memorial to be much more enjoyable thanks to a little bit less crowding. The section under the memorial with background on Jefferson's life and the Enlightenment was especially...enlightening (hehe). A great treat was when I stumbled upon the George Mason memorial, someone who I'd known nothing about. Best of all, the memorial was completely abandoned, just a pleasant garden with a fountain in the center and the man of honor sitting quietly on a bench. It's really a great respite from the other busy memorials. I was impressed with how the FDR memorial, maybe unintentionally captured the more authoritative and communitarian spirit of FDR's presidency. Whereas Lincoln's and Jefferson's memorials have a more open and classical design that invites you to wander about and reflect, visitors to the FDR memorial are guided by massive stone pathways from opening to opening where they are confronted by massive inscriptions bearing quotes from the wartime president, often related to government planning. Running water is also a reoccurring theme, in what I believe is a reference to the Tennessee Valley Authority. However, the water also inspired some communitarian thoughts, with so many droplets of water being channeled in a single direction. Anyways, seeing all these dead white people made me wonder why there hasn't been a monument made of a woman yet! It made me wonder who they should pick if they decided to make one, I'm partial to Susan B. Anthony or Harriet Tubman myself.

My man TJ, not to be confused with TJ Verville.

Besides the monuments, I've also seen some museums! Of course, there's the good ol' Natural History Museum where, disappointingly, everything was not alive as in Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian. I've gotta say, while the Natural History Museum was great, it didn't floor me. I'd take the Imperial War Museum any day. What were amazing were the National Portrait Gallery and American Art Museum, which are housed in the same building and sort of flow into each other. I spent over three hours mesmerized by all the amazing photographs and paintings, seeing everything from civil war era photos, to a landscape of old America, to Eminem. I then headed across the street to the International Spy Museum, which I'd heard great things about. Now this museum cost money unlike all the free Smithsonian museums, so my bar was set a little higher. I gotta say, the place was quite disappointing. I was accosted by an extremely rude security guard in line, and once I got inside there was nothing that impressive. I was also surrounded by smelly boy scouts. The information was all superficial and the exhibits were unimpressive. My advice: don't go.

One of the hundreds of volunteer stitched pillows found inside the National Cathedral.

The last two things I've been to are the zoo and National Cathedral. I love zoos, so I loved the National Zoo, but it's a pretty standard zoo. I was impressed by their small mammal exhibit. The National Cathedral though is one of the most amazing things I've seen in years. As a gothic cathedral, I think it can go toe-to-toe with anything in Europe, but where it really shines is in all the Americana inside. At what other cathedral does one of the stain glassed windows have a moon rock in it? What about a kneeling pad that a volunteer hand stitched JFK's face onto? I took the ten dollar self-guided audio tour, and it was completely worth it. If you ever find yourself in DC, the cathedral is a must visit location.

A view of the cathedral from the outside.

I am still planning on seeing the Air and Space Museum and any other Smithsonians I can, the MLK memorial and a few others, and whatever else comes my way! Stay tuned for a food update sometime in the upcoming week! Take a look through my many photos below.

An altar to Mary inside the National Cathedral

This is the Children's Chapel inside the National Cathedral. Everything in it is scaled to a 6-year old's size, and all the pillows have animals on them.

MLK, the Dali Lama, and many other famous individuals have spoken from this pulpit in the National Cathedral.

The Washington Monument, still being repaired from the 2010 earthquake

The Washington Monument across the lake at night.

From the American Art Museum. A man made this out of aluminum and garbage in his garage over the course of decades. It was a throne for the second coming of Christ, and not discovered until his (the man, not Christ) death.