Brunch With The Obamas

My first job today was to call in on Barry and Michelle. 

They only live a few blocks from my hotel so I rugged up and set off.  Their house is much smaller than I imagined.  I thought they'd be expecting me but it turns out that they'd actually gone on holidays to Hawaii.  Hmm, perhaps they had meant for me to meet them there?

Anyway, they had quite a few police guarding all the gates and there was a row of tents set up for the media with cameras all set up, ready for action.

Here's the back yard

 The front yard

It was a grey old morning in the Nation's capital.  Grey, cold and it was starting to snow when I was taking these pictures.  The fact that I'd been dumped by the Obama's couldn't have made it any greyer.  Still, it was really pretty to wander around - freezing, but pretty.

3 lots of people asked me for directions.  I clearly look like a local.  One man asked me "Scuzi, Casa Bianca?"  so I gave directions in broken English like a complete boss!

Washington has lots of lovely old buildings.  In fact, you have to do a lot of searching to find anything new which is refreshing.  I love the old architecture and the detail they used to put into each and every corner.  They certainly don't make 'em like they used to.

I also came across this little guy.  He stopped for a brief moment to have his picture snapped, then he was off.  He was obviously a very busy squirrel.  Jobs on and such.

Next job for me 

Smithsonian Institution

I have always wanted to visit the Smithsonian.  I did initially think that it was one large museum, but, for those of you who also thought that, it's not. It is actually many separate museums.  A collection of collections, if you will.  So many, in fact, that it would be impossible to visit all of them in only 2.5 days.

But you have to start somewhere, so I started with the Portrait Gallery.

Like other portrait galleries, they have portraits dating back to the 1600's.  Those ones don't interest me as much as the more recent ones.  There was also a teen exhibition where kids created self portraits using all sorts of mediums from paintings to digital media.  One kid even carved his likeness out of wood!  Quite amazing!

Next stop was to the American History Museum.  There's a movie I love called "Julie and Julia" which is about the TV personality and French cooking for Americans cookbook author,  Julia Childs and another chick, called Julie who cooks everything in Julia's cookbook in 365 days.  At the end of the movie they visit this museum to see the Julia Child's exhibition.  

I had forgotten about that until I stumbled across it.  I loved the movie and I fell in love with Julia Childs, so this was a lovely surprise.

Another exhibit they're pretty proud of and of which I was super surprised and excited about was the Little Golden Books.  There is something about these books that I just love.  My favourite Golden Book ever was called "There's a Monster at the End of This Book" and it starred Grover.  It probably wasn't everybody's favourite childhood classic, but I loved that book and still have it.

Right next door was the Natural History Museum.  Now I have been to the one in New York twice and I do love it, but I did think, really? How different can they be?  I mean, New York and Washington probably have the same natural history, right?  So I skipped it and headed for the Air and Space Museum.

 To get from one to the other I needed to cross the National Mall, which is this long grassed area leading up to the Capitol Building in the distance...

Here's one close up.

 ...past the Smithsonian Castle where I stopped for a spot of lunch - a disgusting hotdog.  I took one bite and had to throw it away.  I hope America doesn't put me off junk food!

And finally - The Air and Space Museum.  Like all the museums, this one was chockas FULL off information.  Some might say too much information.  Way too much for one person to take in, especially if they are trying to cram as many museums into one day as I was.

The large, open foyer was filled with hanging flying machines. 

From manually operated bat wing machines...

...to the Space Module...

... to hot air balloon baskets.

Rightly so, the Wright Brothers had a whole exhibition room to themselves.

 Then there was a massive section on space and space exploration.

Soldiering on... the next museum on my list was the National Museum of The American Indian - right next door. 

Check out this building.  It opened in 2004 and took 15 years to build.  It's the first national museum dedicated exclusively to Native Americans.  It was clad in limestone in this shape to look like it had been naturally shaped by the wind and water over thousands of years.  There are no sharp corners inside either, all the walls are curved to keep the flowing movement throughout the building.  It actually reminded me of a museum Jen and I saw in Ottawa called the Canadian Museum for Civilisation which had similar shapes in coloured glass made to represent the Northern Lights - amazing!

This is the ceiling and the stairs inside the main hall. 

 By I time I had reached this museum I was pretty wiped out and if I'm honest I was just going through the motions of being there without really taking in any information.  I did finally find a section about Inuits that I was interested in so stopped to listen to the movie.  At that point a child came and sat on the floor behind me and screamed.  I had to replay the video three times so I could hear everything, then it was time to go.

Washington is not a massive place, so I walked mostly everywhere.  I guess this is also a way to keep warm, although a better way is to just stay inside.