After staying the night in Maryland, we drove to Washington DC. We picked a downtown hotel, hoping that we’d get free parking so we could explore the city without worrying about our car. We were right that we had downtown parking, but it did cost quite a bit.
We decided to get around by taking “the Metro”, DC’s subway and train system, but while we were told it went by “every” point of interest in DC, we soon learned that meant “give or take 10 blocks or so”. We got off at the closest stop to the White House, and walked to the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, and all the way back home to our hotel. I guess for security reasons they don’t make it very easy to take public transportation close to those sights – OR we chose the wrong form of transportation. But, despite our confusion and learning curve, exploring Washington DC was really fun.
On Friday we decided to go to the Smithsonian. For some reason, I had always imagined the Smithsonian to be one HUGE museum, kind of like the Louvre in Paris. What I found out is that the Smithsonian is actually a whole slew of different museums, many of them close together, and all of them spectacular. Even better, they are all free. We saw the Natural History Museum, the National Art Museum, the Air and Space Museum, and even a little bit of the Zoo before the day was over. We could have stayed for a week and still not seen everything. But I did have a bit of a problem with the kids. Although a few of the exhibits mildly intrigued them, they were still high from their experience at the Boston Science Museum and they kept asking me if we could go to a “to do” museum instead of a “to see” museum. I thought that was an interesting way of putting it. They are so used to learning interactively, that looking and reading about things is simply boring. They need to touch, feel, experience, and what’s more, run around. Even by the end of the night, when Mark and I were both practically limping back to the hotel with swollen knees and burning feet, the kids were giggling, running, jumping, and goofing off.
The only big problem we had in DC was mosquito bites. We never thought to bring bug repellent with us sightseeing; yet when it cooled down in the evening we were still out there, and so were the mosquitoes! The itching since then has been awful, but the ability to walk around the city in the evening and actually experience it was really fun – I wish we could have stayed longer.
We decided to get around by taking “the Metro”, DC’s subway and train system, but while we were told it went by “every” point of interest in DC, we soon learned that meant “give or take 10 blocks or so”. We got off at the closest stop to the White House, and walked to the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, and all the way back home to our hotel. I guess for security reasons they don’t make it very easy to take public transportation close to those sights – OR we chose the wrong form of transportation. But, despite our confusion and learning curve, exploring Washington DC was really fun.
On Friday we decided to go to the Smithsonian. For some reason, I had always imagined the Smithsonian to be one HUGE museum, kind of like the Louvre in Paris. What I found out is that the Smithsonian is actually a whole slew of different museums, many of them close together, and all of them spectacular. Even better, they are all free. We saw the Natural History Museum, the National Art Museum, the Air and Space Museum, and even a little bit of the Zoo before the day was over. We could have stayed for a week and still not seen everything. But I did have a bit of a problem with the kids. Although a few of the exhibits mildly intrigued them, they were still high from their experience at the Boston Science Museum and they kept asking me if we could go to a “to do” museum instead of a “to see” museum. I thought that was an interesting way of putting it. They are so used to learning interactively, that looking and reading about things is simply boring. They need to touch, feel, experience, and what’s more, run around. Even by the end of the night, when Mark and I were both practically limping back to the hotel with swollen knees and burning feet, the kids were giggling, running, jumping, and goofing off.
The only big problem we had in DC was mosquito bites. We never thought to bring bug repellent with us sightseeing; yet when it cooled down in the evening we were still out there, and so were the mosquitoes! The itching since then has been awful, but the ability to walk around the city in the evening and actually experience it was really fun – I wish we could have stayed longer.
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