DC Trip Day 2, Friday

Sunday, November 14, 2010

 Friday started with a trip on the subway.  Except for the fact the subway was crowded with morning commuters it was a fun trip.  Everyone is so quiet on the subway they either are listening to an i-pod or read a book.  Our first stop was the Supreme Court. It is a self-guided tour and you just walk around a few rooms looking at the building.   

 

We got some great pictures of the chamber where the judges sit and arguments are heard. 

Other than that there isn’t much more you can do at the Supreme Court. 

Next, we went to the Dirksen Senate Office building were we meet our Senator Mark Pryor’s intern who gave us a tour of the Capitol building.  They have an underground tunnel that connects the senate building to the Capitol but there was a package that had a suspicious liquid in it so they closed off the tunnel and we had to go to the Capitol through the visitor’s center in the front.  The Capitol is so beautiful there are so many things to look at. 

Each state is allowed to have 2 statutes in the Capitol.  There was also a duplicate of the Freedom Statue that is on top of the Capitol dome.  

 We first watched a video then we went and visited the old house and senate meeting rooms. 

They are no longer used today except for swearing in new members.  From there we saw the old Supreme Court room until they built the court their own building.  All of this was build after the fire during the war of 1812 that destroyed the first capitol.  This all lead into the rotunda which has statutes from all the original 13 colonies and beautiful paintings.  The rotunda is the room that presidents have a procession in before they have their funerals. 

Rotunda ceiling

After we went through a new round of security we then got to see the current house and senate meeting rooms.  We were not allowed to take pictures of these rooms for security reasons, but they as look so much smaller than what you see on C-span.  That was the end of our tour and we got to ride the subway senate train back to the senate office. We had planned on going to the library of congress after this but ran out of time. We did get some good pictures of the outside though since it is down the street from the capitol. 

  Our next stop is a tour of the White House.  Now we had to send security information in months ago to get on a list to see the white house and we had to do this through our senator’s office.  The White House does not allow really anything other than a wallet and keys when entering the building so we left our belongings in the senator’s office with his staff who looked after it for us.  So after another metro(subway) ride, and more walking we were able to find the visitor’s entrance to the white house. After 30 minutes of waiting, the guard told us that there were no more tours for the day and that we had to leave.  Since we knew we had an appointment for that time were really upset.  This lead to me calling the intern at the senator’s office who confirmed that our time was right, and after an hour of haggling over the phone with the white house visitor’s staff she got them to admit they had made a mistake with our time.  They gave us another time for the next day.  Thank goodness for the senator’s staff they really came through for us.  The problem with this is that we would again have to leave behind our belongings somewhere tomorrow or not bring them at all. It was just a lot of hassle.  Since it was late in the afternoon and we were starving, we walked down to the national mall to try to find food.  Apparently we did not get the memo that the National mall is really a park.  Yes that is right, the mall is not a mall were you shop but a park you can walk in.  Thankfully after walking more blocks we found a restaurant at one of the Smithsonian’s, which by the way we learned the Smithsonian is really multiple museum buildings.  After our late lunch, we walked over to the National Archives were we got behind this really long line of teenagers and waited for over 30 minutes to get in. We finally got in and a really nice guard let us cut line and go into the room that has the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.  Unfortunately, they no longer allow pictures because the documents cannot handle the flashes.  But it was awesome getting to see the originals, and to see my ancestor’s signature on the Declaration of Independence.  It was really crowded so we left after that and headed but to the metro which took us back to the senator’s office to get our belongings.  Another metro ride and we were glad to be back at our hotel.  Our feet were so sore from walking miles and miles, I also was wearing boots because I was afraid of it raining again and having wet feet.  Both of our feet were in pain but what really sucked was that my feet swelled from walking in the boots.  What we needed was a good night’s sleep.