The Dome Tour:
John has been waiting months and months to go on a tour of the Capitol's dome. It is not a normal touristy thing to do, and he happened to get one for the first day I was in town. Why is it so special? A Congressman has to take you on the tour and they are limited to the amount that they are allowed to do. Which makes it awesome. And Congress was right in the middle of a fight over the debt ceiling, so everyone was super busy. Which makes it even cooler that we still got to go. Since D.C. is like 105 degrees with more humidity than is necessary, inside the dome was HOT. I was advised to leave my sweater in the Congressman's office.
Our first stop, outside of the original dome.
There were a million stairs....ok, or like 400
Halfway to the top!
A secret window!
Me, John, and Jennifer (the one that made the whole thing happen)
Right under Washington's Apotheosis - as high as you can get inside the dome. The tour guide told us that the people at the bottom in the rotunda couldn't hear us no matter how loud we yelled. We proved him wrong when everyone in the group yelled at the same time.
Headed outside!
The top of the original dome
Umm....'Merica? Please water the grass at the National Mall, it is embarrassing.
I was super excited!
Looking up to the tip top of the dome. You can't see her, but the statue "Freedom" sits on top.
The Capitol Building Tour:
Since John always has connections in whatever city he happens to be in, we got a private tour of the Capitol building.
View from the rotunda to Washington's Apotheosis
Each state is allowed to have two statues in the Capitol building. I found the ones that mattered.
John was told that there was a shooting in Statuary Hall a few years back, and a bullet hit one of the statues...this statue.
IDAHO!!!!! I believe this is a statue of William Borah, as in Mount Borah.
Brigham Young!! Utah Represent!
The Library of Congress:
First stop - getting me a library card
Inside the entrance to the library. So beautiful.
Part of Jefferson's library. His library was donated to the government and was transformed into the Library of Congress.
So the fountain outside was very strange. The people and horses were all twisted in weird ways. In addition to that, the horses were half horse, half mermaid. John and I played with "horse" and "mermaid" for a while until we created the perfect word to describe them....hormaid (like whore-maid) haha...good one brother.
Ford's Theater and the Smithsonian:
John and I took an audio tour of Ford's theater, where President Lincoln was shot. There was a nice little museum and then a little lecture about the events of that night.
After Ford's Theater we were suppose to take a walking tour of Lincoln's life, but we were late and missed it. So we went to one of the Smithsonians instead. It was huge, but had a few really cool items of interest.
Pondering...cause I'm smart....and at the Smithsonian
An entire room all about coins!! Picture was taken just for you dad.
Boiler Up!!
Stephen Colbert. I LOVE HIM
Apolo Ohno's states. My love for him is still going strong.
Manchester United v. FC Barcelona
The soccer frenzy continues!! I love soccer! So John took me to see a couple of awesome primer league teams play! I have yet to decide which international team I want to call my favorite, but it is not Barcelona....so we cheered for Manchester United. They won, of course, cause I'm a good luck charm. The skill of these players was out of control! It is amazing how good they are.
Arlington Cemetery:
Our friend from home, Catherine Gilbert was kind enough to show us around Arlington Cemetery!
John F. Kennedy's tomb and the Eternal Flame
View from JFK's tomb - a perfect view of the Lincoln Memorial
The Tomb of the Unknowns: The process of guarding the tomb and the changing of the guard is very elaborate. Soldiers must study for 2 years and memorize 7 pages of the history of Arlington Cemetery before they can just get a practice walk. It was really cool to see.
Walking the Monuments - Mormon and American
On Sunday night we decided we would take a walk around all the awesome monuments in D.C. We started at the temple and then hit up the 'Merican monuments. My best guy friend, Thayne, just so happens to live in D.C. so he came with us, and John's friend Tara came. Thank you Tara for bringing your "nerdy" camera and taking all these awesome pictures!
The White House - aka 'Bama's House
The Washington Monument
World War II Memorial
The Lincoln Memorial
The Newseum
The newseum is an awesome museum dedicated to...wait for it....the news. It has news papers and videos from a lot of the major events in recent history - aka September 11th, Hurricane Katrina, the fall of the Berlin Wall, etc.
The largest piece of the Berlin Wall outside of Germany
The largest elevator ever
Awesome view of the Capitol Building AND the Canadian Embassy.
Haha
Newspapers from September 12, 2001. There was a really great video you could watch with amazing footage from 9/11. It was really well done and really cool to be able to see.
Washington Nationals!!
Washington Nationals baseball game...you can't get more American than that! I even ate a hot dog and watched the President's race.
John's friends made him a microphone...he loved it
Before leaving for the game it was raining pretty hard. As we were walking out of the door the conversation went like this.
John: You are wearing a white t-shirt in the rain?
Me: Yeah, I have an undershirt on. It will be fine.
John: Ok....I'm just saying that you are probably going to get raped and I'm not going to do anything about it...
**Please note that John ALSO has a white shirt on.
Walking the Monuments: Part 2
On Tuesday John had to work, so Tara took me around to see all the monuments that we didn't have time to see on Sunday. Tara didn't have her fancy camera with her, so unfortunately these pictures were taken by my camera...and my camera isn't very good at night shots.
The Jefferson Memorial
Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial
Korean War Memorial
There are faces etched all along the wall
The detail on these statues is amazing
The Vietnam War Memorial
There is a huge wall with the name of every soldier that died in the war. It is built into the ground. We walked past it on Sunday and I didn't even notice it, but it was awesome.
Mount Vernon:
I am "here"
The Washington's Mansion
The Haha Wall. Funny cause people tripped down it a lot? But it is really called The Haha Wall.
Ever since I saw a video of Nixon at the Newseum I've been pulling out the peace and/or victory sign.
The ice shed. Back in the day it was a sign of real wealth to have one of these. G.W. was loaded.
The tomb of Martha and George Washington
The view from the back porch of the mansion
I saw three things at Mount Vernon that I had never seen before...and John made fun of me....a catepillar, a cardinal, and umbrella bags.
1 comment:
I friggin' love your sexy tank. And I still laugh at this girls that want some of your brother fighting over your friend ship...I wish you could have been a reality show over this trip so I could be addicted.
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