I spent the past week in Washington, DC for Fulbright orientation. I've been to DC many times, but each time I get to see and do something new. I was able to tour the Capitol building for the first time and saw several of the monuments at night on a guided tour. It was also the first time I was able to go to some of the Smithsonian museums with my children and I was able to experience the excitement through their eyes. I was also able to get a taste of what they will and won't tolerate as tourists for when we travel to Finland.
We walked along the National Mall as a family and Tea enjoyed the Air and Space, Natural History and American History museums. Talia, on the other hand, mostly enjoyed riding up and down the escalators and touching just about anything she could. It's amazing to see how much Tea learned in kindergarten and was excited to see Lincoln's hat, grasshoppers, Dorothy's ruby red slippers and Amelia Earhart's plane. She could identify the gender of the Madagascar hissing coackroaches by their horns and was excited to hold several creepy crawly things. She asked some great questions and already had a lot of background knowledge on many of the things we saw.
Once the family left I did some touring with my new Fulbright friends. I was fascinated by the story of the huge painting in the dome of the Capitol building. The painting, The Apotheosis of Washington, is filled with symbolism and our guide showed us some of it. Unfortunately, the dome is under construction so we were unable to see it in person. We saw the old home of the Supreme Court and were able to sit in the balcony of the Senate. The State Department arranged a night tour of some of the monuments and I find each guide always tells some new stories. This time I learned an amazing fun fact about the Lincoln Memorial.
If you look closely at the back of Lincoln's head there is a profile of a man. It is said to be the profile of General Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate army during the Civil War. He is staring in the direction of his home, which is now Arlington National Cemetery. Now that I've seen the profile I can't unsee the image and I keep flashing to Voldemort with the two heads in a Harry Potter movie!
So much more happened in Washington, DC than seeing the sites, but before writing about it all I needed time to just reflect on the fun I was able to have with my family and new friends seeing the sites!