Washington DC (Part 3)
One of the more incredible places in DC that a true geek like me can appreciate is the Library Of Congress. While walking from the Capitol South metro station, I noted that the flags are at half-staff yet only some of them where not all of them. I realized that the representative from Ohio, Stephanie Tubbs Jones must have died. I knew she had an aneurysm the week before I went and she was prematurely announced dead but this was corrected that day so I figured she was gonna make it alright. I hadn't followed the story closely, but realized the ultimate ending's answer was in front of me.
So I reach the Library of Congress and decide to take the tour and the tour guide is great since he has a really dry sense of humor. Saying about how to be careful on some of the steps as the marble has warped in a u like shape over time (200 years) and that since it's DC there's a lot of paperwork if someone falls and gets hurt and that neither the tourist nor him want to do that. Ha. He's really informative and focuses a lot on the architecture, so much so that afterwards I hunt for a book about it in the gift shop...and find there isn't one!
He recounted a story, which I cannot verify otherwise, about the mosaic picture of the Roman goddess Minerva (a patron god of wisdom) which has real gold trim around it. Once people learned of this, certain individuals would take umbrellas or screwdrivers and chip out gold and cash it in, which around the early 1900's netted you a couple grand, taking inflation into account, it'd be around 45 grand today. Due to the defacement and theft really, they instituted a rule about no sharp objects near the mosaic. Unforunately after this rule was created a man went up there with an umbrella and didn't see what the big deal was about. He was promptly arrested. Later on he went on to become President Woodrow Wilson. Interesting if true.
After this, we went into the research area (no pictures allowed by tourists but here is one). As we went in, he explained all of the different statues representing different areas of knowledge (i.e. Newton for Science, Columbus for navigation/discovery) though one section was being cleaned and had a dust tarp draped over it. I learned not everything is kept after they receive their copy when something is submitted for copyright, they get the duplicate and review whether or not to keep it or toss it. The Library of Congress has more than books now, including pictures, comic books, audio recordings, and films that are culturally important. So people 200 years from now can enjoy the classic movie "Back To The Future". :) Or Blazing Saddles even.
He talked about the early days of The Library of Congress and the War of 1812 and how the books in the library were used for kindling to set the capitol (it's original location) in flames. Once burnt to a crisp, Thomas Jefferson sold all of the books in his library to reboot the library so to speak. Which had another fire that destroyed a healthy chunk of his books. Man I'd be pissed if I sold my collection and a lot of it got toasted. (shakes head) Well now the Library of Congress is trying to rebuild that original collection of 6,487 books he sold. Once again, no pictures allowed but can be learned and seen here. Turns out Jefferson was a founding father with OCD, sorting his collection by topic like a library. Ha. There was also an exhibit on the creation of the Declaration of Independence, Bill Of Rights, and so on seen here. You can see the rough draft of preamble to the Declaration of Independence and see what things got changed and scratched out. Extremely cool. Also an interesting side note from Jefferson I had never seen before about him telling a friend that he loathed slavery (and yes he had slaves), but he was waiting for the country to cool down and come together before he was going to stir up the pot and try to emancipate the slaves. Died before he saw the chance I suppose. Not something that's often seen or spoken about though.
On a funny note about the Library of Congress, before we started the tour the guide asked us to turn off our phones. As he goes to turn his phone off, which I recognize as a Samsung I-760 PDA phone, it rings from his wife calling. Ha. Since I've been here it's amazing how much Verizon dominates the landscape. Must be hard to sell a new line, since 8 of 10 people have the service already. All over Metro I saw 8830s, Curves, and Blackberry Pearls. Though it is kinda cool there's a store 7 blocks away from the White House.
So after the tour, I head to my next stop which is The Supreme Court (right next door). I notice right away that they're working on the oustide with scaffolding and realize that's gonna ruin my shot. :( I head inside anyways, go through another metal detector (#3 for those keeping track) and head straight down the main hall to the courtroom to see what's going on as far as tours go. Once again, I know they're out of session and handled their last case a while back, but still. Turns out that the courtroom is closed for modernization. I knew they had electricity installed, what other modern improvements do they need? Very peculiar. (shrugs) So I tried to make the best of it and got pictures of the main hall and downstairs of the large statue of John Marshall (1st chief justice) and they had miniature scale models of the old Supreme Court courtroom (when it was in the Capitol) and the new one.
Taking care of that attraction quickly, I hopped on Metro and walked to the Air and Space Museum and get through (metal detector #4) and immediately am beseiged by stuff in the air, on the walls with plaques, and stuff on the ground. Sputnik and the Spirit of St Louis, Friendship 7 space capsule and even old nuclear warheads. Well normally they're only open until 5, but they still had summer hours til 7:30 and I planned to use it. I didn't have to rush and since the Library of Congress was a bit longer than I anticipated this worked out well. I go through an olde time plane exhibit, like around the late 1800s and early 1900s, and see the Wright Brothers information as well as their competitors. Turns out the Wright Brothers build the first military planes for what was then known as the War Department (now known as the Department of Defense). They also had an exhibit on jets and how they worked (even including a movie clip of Sid Caesar in a movie about jets). There was one exhibit about the evolution of telescopes and satellites that had an interesting cell phone tour. You called up a local DC number on your phone and then when you got to a part in the exhibit you punched up the section number and it gave you an in-depth description like a tour guide would. Really cool. I noticed they were using this at the Lincoln Memorial too. Both of them pilot projects so this is something new I've never seen or heard of before. There were some other cool exhibits on planets and space that I got pictures of and went through as well. All in all I covered the entire museum and that place is huge! :)
So my scheduled dinner that night was Fogo de Chao, which I had read had casual dress code and I didn't feel comfortable going in my khaki shorts so I decided I should get a nice pair of pants or jeans perhaps. With time running out before everything closed (including the restaurant) I dropped my stuff off at the hotel and took the Metro back (killing an hour) and quickly got to the Macy's at Metro Center, quickly tried on a pair of jeans and trying to remember the right size. I got one that fit snug, thinking it might come in handy later in the week (wink) and headed out to Fogo de Chao. I finally arrive with an hour and half before closing. I notice the place is all with people in suits and ties and the women in expensive dresses. Fuck. Jeans ain't gonna work here. I didn't bring along any classy clothes, planning on all the restaurants to be casual and not wanting to bring extra shoes, shirt, pants, etc. Well I learned this time, didn't I? So that place was ruled out for the rest of the trip. Got a decent pair of jeans though. I head to the hotel and now I'm really hungry. Everything was closed either in DC or in Alexandria. Trying to come up with some idea, it dawns on me to look for Pizza Hut. So I call one and get a pizza delivered and watched the DNC convention speeches that night.
I was kinda disappointed about not going there but I've learned there's a similar type of restaurant in Downers called Zed 451. Both restaurants are the Brazillian steakhouse where you have a sign that while green a guy piles whatever meat he's got on a skewer and when you have the red sign, they don't add any more. It's best to go in a group and it is expensive, so best to hold off on that one for a special occasion. Maybe me getting a girlfriend. Ha. So maybe there's a good reason that one didn't work out. Though I will be modifying the Yelp page on it to make clear that's it's definitely not "casual".
Well it's fitting that I end the night watching politics in a suburb of DC.