In Which I See the Capitol Building

Today I went into D.C. to the Smithsonian museums on the National Mall. (I must say that the Metro system is really convenient. The biggest problem is living 30 minutes away from it.) The weather was supposed to be rainy all day, but though it was certainly quite gloomy, there was a brief time when it was almost sunny. I took advantage of this and went to see the Capitol Building, which is about 1/2 mile from the museums. It was strange to see it in real life. I've seen it on tv and in movies, and there I was, seeing it for real.

I went to the Air and Space Museum, which was fantastic! First of all, it's free. Secondly, it has all these replicas of various space shuttles and stations. There is so much to see and so many buttons to push! I love pushing buttons. There also was a big exhibit about the history of stewardesses, complete with a panel of visiting retired stewardesses from the 60's. I must say, some of the uniforms from that era were crazy --- pink mini-skirts with paisley hot pants, orange ponchos, bright yellow mini-dresses.... Yikes! Anyway, as you can see from the pictures, it was impressive.


I also went to the Freer Gallery. It has a large collection of paintings by Whistler, of Whistler's Mother fame. It does not actually have that painting however, which I believe is in Paris. It also had a room Whistler's Peacock Room. Only at the Smithsonian would there be an entire room devoted to decaying green velvet, gilded peacocks murals, and shelves of blue Chinese pottery. I think it would have been more impressive 5 hours earlier in the day. The Japaneses screens were really quite beautiful, though, and I could have sat and looked at them for hours. I was also impressed by the variety and quality of Asian art exhibited. There were some exquisite pieces.