Our Trip to Washington DC – Part 2

The next day we were up and ready to see what DC had to offer. We picked up breakfast at Starbucks – are we seeing a pattern here? It’s not my fault there was one right next to our metro stop! – and were off to the Holocaust Museum. I don’t know if it’s weird to say that I really enjoyed the Holocaust Museum since it’s, ya know, about the holocaust and all but – I really enjoyed the Holocaust Museum.

We spent over 3 hours walking every square inch of the museum. It was a lot of reading, but very informative and it had information on any possible topic you wanted to know about in regards to the Holocaust. They had pictures, movies, displays that included news clippings, liberation videos, personal belongings from victims (shoes, glasses, hair even), and actual artifacts from concentration camps and ghettos. They also had a room where you could listen to interviews from Holocaust survivors and follow along in a book. It was very moving to hear them describe their experiences. We walked through a train car that was actually used to transport people to the camps - that was a little eerie.

When we arrived they give us a little booklet that looks sort of like a passport. It has a short bio of an actual victim of the holocaust. At the end of each floor, we flipped the page to find out what happened next in our person’s life (it is organized by time periods). Some don’t survive but both of ours were liberated.

After that we headed toward the National Archives. We passed the Smithsonian Castle & grabbed lunch at this little hot dog stand. The city is really beautiful - every building looks so official but at the same time has such beautiful architecture. It looks nothing like Jacksonville, I will say that. Nothing corporate or commercial.

When we arrived, we stood in line waiting to go through security, as we did pretty much everywhere we went, and we were getting pretty good. Take off your shoes (in some places), take off your belt, put your phone in your bag and put your bag down to be scanned. Walk through the metal detector, let them wand my right shoulder blade that must have a chunk of metal in it or something because it got flagged repeatedly…

The lady in front of us must not have been thrilled about the process because she SNATCHED her bag from the security guard. Now, I didn’t see this action but I sure did hear about it: Security Guard #1 “You do not need to snatch that – that is rude!” Girl with annoyed look on her face - rolls eyes. Security Guard #2 “Did you just snatch that from him? Mmmm, mmmm” Security Guard #1 “I will give it back to you but you do not need to snatch. Snatching is rude.” Okay – we get it. She snatched it. It was rude. Let’s go – I have a constitution to see!

& constitution we did see along with the declaration of independence and many other important documents. It was really neat but I didn’t realize how faded the ink would be – you could barely make out ‘John Hancock’. Still very neat and awe-inspiring to be in a room with such powerful documents that founded our country. Sorry, no pictures allowed.

Next we went to the Library of Congress. Did ya’ll know the inside of it is basically a work of art? I had no idea how beautiful it was! We went through a couple of exhibits, saw Thomas Jefferson’s library, and then we gazed with wide eyes (through plexi-glass) into the rotunda. It was awesome, you guys. The only thing that would have made it better would be if we could have actually gone inside…. Researchers only. The architecture and the sculptures around the room were just magnificent, in my opinion. Super cool.

I am pretty sure we called it a day after that and finished with dinner at Founding Farmers – best fried green tomatoes I’ve ever had. Oh my dear, I basically waddled home.

Part 3 coming right up!