Our choice for this year's spring break came about when I spent 2 hours on a layover in Washington, Dulles Airport back in January. As I sat there I thought about all the fun things that we could get up to in Washington - so the idea was born!
We plan to spend most of our time visiting the museums and monuments of our capital. I have spent a fair amount of time here in the past, but Zack has never been here. We love to explore the great cities of the world and I truly think Washington DC holds some of the greatest museums and monuments our country has to offer!
Today (Sunday) was our first full day here and we certainly got busy seeing the sites! We are staying at hotel our in the burbs (New Carrolton, MD) and taking the subway into the city everyday. We were up and about at 8:00AM and we headed out on the subway by 9:30AM or so. The Smithsonian stop on the National Mall was our stop and we exited the subway line to find ourselves face-to-face with the Washington Monument and the Smithsonian "Castle". A quick investigation proved to us that we won't get to the top of the Washington Monument today so we turned our attention to the Smithsonian Museums.
Our first stop was at the Smithsonian "Castle" to learn more about the entire chain of museums. While we were there, Zack learned about a sculpture at the Hirshhorn Sculpture Museum that is a giant cypher. This cypher is so complex that it has never been cracked. Of course that totally and completely aroused his imagination and we made the Hirshhorn our first stop. Much of the artwork in the Hirshhorn is modern art and try as I might I didn't see much beauty or purpose in a lot of it. But we did get to see the sculpture with the cypher in it and Zack is determined to try and crack it! Good luck on that one Z man! :-)
After the Hirshhorn we journeyed to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. The magnitude of that museum always seems to overwhelm my senses! I think Zack enjoyed it immensely - especially the part gallery dedicated to astronomy and the universe.
After the Air and Space Museum we spent the rest of our day exploring the confines of the National Mall. We visited the WWII Memorial and the Vietnam War Memorial. Though I am anything but an art critic, I don't understand the design principles to what was done for the WWII Memorial - it just didn't make much sense to me. On the otherhand, every time I walk past the stark "wall" of the Vietnam War Memorial, I am left with a sense of the immense sacrifice that was given by all who fought in that war. Just a very interesting difference in the two monuments.
We also managed to visit the Albert Einstein Memorial in front of the National Academy of the Sciences. Zack seemed mesmorized by seeing this huge statue of his hero. I hope we can get back there when it might be less crowded as a whole bus of kids unloaded when we arrived there. I think it would be neat for Zack to spend some time there to "connect" with the physicist who he idolizes.
We hope everyone had a great weekend!
1 comment:
nice post, your pictures are great too.
and is the statue of Einstein as big as it looks? it must be fun for little guys to climb on.
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