Washington D.C.

Tuesday 08.06. - Washington D.C.

Our early start almost works. We're not leaving at 8:30am as planned, but at 9:15am, but that's okay. We drive from our station Foggy Bottom to Capitol South and go to the Capitol.

We have to wait outside for a while, then go through a security gate, and then go to a counter where we get free tickets for 10:00am. Tours can only be done with a guide and you have to make sure to get a time slot that works – it is assigned to you. Either you take it, or you don't.

First, there is a short film about the government, political parties, congress, and the senate, and the founding of the parliament. I will never understand the American electoral system.

Then we are led into a first round room with several statues.

We have a hectic guide who talks in a shrill voice and her babbling is transmitted to our headphones. Next room, more statues, more babbling, and many groups all getting explanations at the same time. A cacophony of voices - simply terrible and totally annoying, so I take off my headphones and stop listening.

We pass the corridor to Nancy Pelosi's offices - but no opportunity to say hello to her...

Then the tour is over and we organize a ticket for the visit to the House of Congress. We have to line up again. Security check and deposit of the entire backpack and camera, etc. No photos allowed. The room is behind another security gate. We can take a seat on the gallery. Unfortunately, there is no debate going on below. We see the chair where Nancy Pelosi usually sits. In the Congress, the representatives debate laws.

We leave the Capitol at 12:00pm and skip the House of Senators. Across from the Capitol is the Library of Congress, where one of the three remaining Gutenberg Bibles is, which used to belong to a German named Stockheim. The name doesn't mean anything to me, except in connection with Kaufhof...

The building is beautiful on the inside, with great colors. We sneak into a group and can look into a reading room from above. The books are there for scientists who have an ID. So we can only look through the glass - no photos allowed.

If you have access there, you can request one of the thousands of books and within 45-60 minutes it pops up through a pneumatic tube to a central, large table, where you can pick it up.

We leave the library and go to the nearby Botanical Garden.

A not very large building, but nicely done. Again, school classes around us. We would have liked to sit outside for a coffee afterwards, but for once, there is neither a café nor a souvenir shop here.

So we continue up the Mall and past the Museum for American Indians to the Air & Space Museum. We stand in front of the entrance (again among school classes... don't they ever go to school??) and then enter the pretty busy museum.

While I remember the museum as totally exciting 30 years ago, it is now rather boring. There are many diagrams that you have to read. Of course, the planes, space capsules, and rockets are impressive. We actually wanted to have something to drink or eat here, but the museum café is an overflowing McDonald's that smells as bad as every McDonald's worldwide. We don't want that smell on us and we definitely don't want to line up for food three times.

To avoid the ubiquitous school groups, we buy tickets for the Imax at 4:20pm and leave the museum after about 1.5 hours. We go back to the Museum of American Indians and have a look at Native American artifacts, clothing, and films about their current lives and customs.

A quick stop at the shop, a snack and a juice in the café, which is wonderfully quiet, and we go back to the Air & Space Museum to see the Imax film.

It's about the 2009 Space Shuttle mission that repaired the Hubble space telescope. An breathtaking 3D film that shows the recordings of the spacewalk for the repair and also scenes from the shuttle. In addition, there are great shots of Hubble - shots that the thing sent. Apparently, it even filmed inside and behind a black hole and recorded other galaxies and nebulae there, where new stars are forming. An amazing 45-minute film for $9.

So it's after 5:00pm when we come out of here and we just want to take a taxi back to the hotel. For $10, we are - including a last look at the Washington Monument - at our State Plaza Hotel on Virginia Avenue/21 NW. After a 10-minute stopover, we're in the next taxi to Georgetown. G. wants to buy shoes and we find a nice Italian restaurant and have delicious pasta.

We walk back to the hotel, where we - oh wonder - arrive before 9:00pm. G. starts packing and with my portable luggage scale, which looks like a butcher's hook, we weigh all the bags and now know that we can still go shopping!

Wash feet and wash sandals and off to bed.