Washington, DC - Part 1

DC may not be a giant city, but there's more to do than you could ever imagine. Seriously. If you had a week to check it out, you still wouldn't see all the attractions and historical sites. It's both frustrating and amazing at the same time. Since Jason & I have friends there, we don't push ourselves to see EVERYTHING possible. We just go see what interests us this visit and save more for later. First thing first, our friend needed to stop by work to get some passes and things. Since she works for a certain House Representative, we get to do a few things that normal tourists wouldn't get to do.

Like sit in that House Representative's chair in his office:


Or, walk in the tunnel from one of the House buildings all the way to the Library of Congress. Yeah, we were doing our I'm-so-cool-because-I-know-someone-who-works-here-walk. Sorry, no pics of that. (of either the tunnel or the walk)

The Library of Congress was gorgeous! It is a truly beautiful building and a piece of art. This is the view from the outside. I actually took this picture last because we entered the building from underground.

Inside, there is architectural detail everywhere from floor....


to ceiling.....



I did get to see the main reading room, but no cameras were allowed in there. You also had to view it from above in a glass-encased balcony that made me both claustrophobic and hot at the same time. They keep you in glass so that they can regulate the temperature and atmosphere (germs and such) of the room. We didn't look at the building much more than this as we had other plans for DC. Here's our obligatory picture before leaving:


From here, we walked across the national mall to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. On the way, we walked right by the Capital building:


And so as not to let this post get incredibly long and to allow more bloggy time for me, I'm ending Part 1 here. Stay tuned for Part 2 - The Smithsonian Experience.