Thursday, August 9
So,
if any of you want to tour the White House, this is what you do. First, contact
your local congressperson's office way in advance, to see if they can score
tickets for you. If not, you have to do what I did. Get up really early in
the morning in DC. Go to the White House visitor's center. (Make sure you
are there by 6 or 6:30 at the very latest). Stand in a 3-block line for two
hours and then hope that they don't run out of tickets before you get to the
front of the line. I was a lucky one. I got there at 6:30 and got tickets
for one of the last tours of the day.
Anyway, I got tickets and even got to read the paper while I waited. Did you know that our economy was a bit slow these days? I got back to the hotel room by 8:30 and Andy and Vienna were still in bed. Our tour wasn't scheduled until 11:45 so we had a while. We decided to go do Lincoln in the interim. For Lincoln we did Ford's theater which was about two blocks from our hotel. I really enjoyed it. We sat in the theater itself while a docent wove the yarn of John Wilkes Booth's dastardly deed. It was actually very moving and educational. Afterward, we were able to explore the museum display downstairs, purchase some items at the ever-present gift shop and then walk across the street to the house where Lincoln actually died. The museum had the pistol that shot Lincoln and the dagger that Booth used to stab Lincoln's guest in the arm. There were also displays of his funerals, busts and paintings honoring the man and even some political cartoons from his campaign. We enjoyed it a lot.
From
there, it was off to the White House, getting hotdogs and a pretzel from a
street vendor on the way. The White House was what you would expect, lavish
furniture, expensive gifts from around the world and paintings of the presidents
and first ladies. But, we were in the WHITE HOUSE! What fun! I had always
wanted to go so it was really neat being there with the secret service watching
our every move. One caught me touching the taffeta type wall covering and
said, "Please, don't touch the wall covering." Vienna was excited that
I got "yelled at" by a secret service man. We took a couple of pictures
of us out on the lawn and then headed to our next destination with a quick
stop at Andy's favorite DC store, Political Americana. There were lots of
cute political trinkets.
Then, we went to the retirement home of Woodrow Wilson who is the only president to retire in DC. He had a lovely townhouse where he lived after his presidency. He was the big force behind the idea of the League of Nations. Unfortunately, the work for this cause was so difficult; he eventually suffered a stroke doing it. During his recovery time, his wife decided who would and wouldn't see him, depending on who would or wouldn't upset him in his delicate condition. Thus, she, in effect, ran the country until he was more able to work. The trek to Wilson was difficult. There is a heat wave this week covering the whole eastern half of the country. After we got off the metro, we walked up embassy row, where all the different embassies are located. We even saw a statue of Mahatma Gandhi, which Andy loved.
After Wilson we took a side trip to one of Andy's favorite museums in DC - the National Building Museum. We enjoyed an exhibit on the changing architecture of office space. It was interesting but I felt it was missing a couple things, like the evolution of the cubicle. I would have liked to see that. From here we went to dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. Not the most original choice but it turned out to be very enjoyable. Good food and we got to see the old Michael Jackson Thriller video. Vienna had never seen it so it was fun to introduce her to a memorable part of 80's culture. After dinner, we spent a relaxing evening in the hotel room watching TV. Just to add some context, we watched the speech by President George W. Bush when he announced his decision about stem cell research. Tomorrow we have another big day - we're heading for the big apple!