Started off our tour of Washington DC this morning by putting on four layers of clothing, beanies, scarves and stepping outside with extreme trepidatioin- Forecast -1C… feels like -11C thanks to 45kph winds. OMG. Swift change of plans from outdoor touring of the monuments to indoor touring of the Capitol buildings.
So we hit the US Capitol Visiting Building where the US House of Representatives and US Senate have met for more than two centureies (yep! I was fucking paying attention even if none of the school kids were). We started off our tour there with a wonderfully presented, and might I say hideously idealistic, video outlining how American democracy works… or rather, how it is supposed to work. It is pretty powerful and amazing stuff, in theory, though the film failed to outline how the US seems to have deviated from the high values set forth by the founding fathers and (from the outside) appears to now have the best political system money can buy. But I digress, I don’t really want to get into my thoughts on politics today. The film was cool – a lot of ‘Murrica Fuck Yeah! and a bit of history thrown in to boot.
We had a delightfully condescending tour guide – unfortunately no self guiding through this place – who I dare say was primarily familiar with dealing with 8th graders and proceeded to treat all of us like thus. Miss Clemens guided us around the various chambers and told us very little history of the place, nothing of the workings of the place, so her primary function seemed to be to herd us from space to space with the precision of an air traffic controller and give people chances to take photos – all the while speaking to us in a smattering of Italian ‘because the painter responsible for the frescoes in the Rotunda, Constantino Brumidi, was of Italian and Greek descent’. I did note that her Greek was lacking to absent, so I assume she was just big noting herself … fuckin’ plonker.
We went through the Crypts where no one is actually fucking buried, because it was built for George Washington, but he’s actually interred elsewhere – would have thought that particular misnomer would have been rectified over the last few hundred years, but apparently not.
Then we spent some time being marched through the Rotunda at the centre of the Capitol Building itself which is really quite spectacular. You don’t see architecture like this in Australia, and I haven’t seen anything this impressive since I was last in Europe. It is interesting to me (an as art wanker) to see how many Greek/Roman Classical motifs, and Medieval European design elements are incorporated into the building and it’s aesthetic. Not sure Mr K appreciated my lectures though! 😛
Throughout the Rotunda and the next space we encountered called the Hall of Statues, which was once the meeting space of the House of Representatives before they outgrew it, are large bronze and marble statues of noteworthy Americans – everyone from Lincoln, Washington, Regan, Lydon Johnson to Rosa Parks, Hellen Keller and Martin Luther King Jnr. Most of the statuary is donated by the States, and each state is allowed to supply only two statues on plinths with their State name on it… should a State wish to replace one of their statues, they can do so, but only with the approval of Congress to make sure we don’t get ten Neil Armstrong statues in the line up! Several states have replaced statues – mostly because they accidentally commissioned a statue of some long dead old guy who might once have meant something back home, but who wasn’t recognizable on the national stage. So these statues are scattered throughout the building.
After taking in the official tour, we decided to visit the public viewing galleries because Congress was sitting today and went on up to the House of Representatives gallery (gorgeous tiles on the floor up here, but no cameras allowed). We saw them opening the session which was a unique experience for both of us. We saw the Speaker call the session to order, some Reverend Patrick Conroy, Chaplain of US House of Representatives said a prayer while all bowed heads (including observers in the gallery), and then we saw something we’ve never seen before – everyone turned behind the Speaker and said the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag… with hands fervently on hearts. Talk about feeling like an outsider looking in, while you’re actually simultaneously blending in with the crowd. Mr K refers to it as ‘Jane Goodalling’ and today, I could really feel it. (The Australians are attempting to observe the natives in their natural habitat and today noticed some odd group behaviour patterns.) Seriously, it was like watching some sort of cult religious observances and it felt really weird – probably would have, even without the little girl down our row looking at us like we were from out of space for not following suit.
When the session started, we got a variety of ‘Gentlemen of X State’ (men and women congress representatives all, ‘gentlemen’) addressing the house on whatever the hell pleases them… first guy got up and talked about the Hobby Lobby from a woman’s right to choose her own health care perspective; second guy got up and spoke about some dead commander who was obviously a cool dude and should have a proclamation read about him; next guy got up and talked about how Obamacare sucked; someone else stood and talked about how unemployment is really shit and how the government needed to provide decent unemployment to avoid poverty; then some random congressman got up and talked about how his state basketball was on a huge winning streak (no doubt he just put the mockers on them) and how proud his entire state is of them ‘Go Shockers!’ (he literally said that); then we were back to the Hobby Lobby and this time about abortion and a childs right to exist… all a bit disjointed and accomplishing nothing. I am sure it gets better than this, but we didn’t stick around to find out – apparently the Prime Minister of the Ukraine was addressing this afternoon and someone invited the Pope to come speak at some future date. No segue. 😀
After that we head over the the most expensive non-airport cafeteria ever for a quick salad and then off to The Library of Congress, which is a very, very cool building. Here we cranned our necks for about an hour looking at all the amazing frescoes which had the names of a multitude of famous authors painted amongst romanesque be-draped women and cherubs, and laurel wreaths and other motifs of antiquity. Authors such as Euripides, Homer, Aristotle and Seneca were littering the ceilings along with Milton, Tennyson, Dumas, Dante and a bunch of other authors most visitors have probably never read and many of which they have probably never heard of. Lots of beautiful mosaics, fabulous marble carved columns and staircases, (you’d think they’d have learned from Europe – marble staircases don’t wear well and end up all uneven and difficult to walk up) and the frescoed ceilings were fabulous, even if they were predominantly in a hideous orange colour.
We managed to pop up to the viewing gallery that overlooks the main Reading Room and attempt to have a look down into one of the most extensive and impressive libraries in the world which was behind a huge plexiglass wall standing about two foot back from the marble baulstrading – which meant if you were five foot tall (like me) you couldn’t see down into the library properly at all… sucks to be the two guys in wheelchairs that were up there with us – bad planning that. From the pics I took with the camera held above my head, it is pretty fucking impressive down there. 🙂 I had taken about two dozen photos when a guard came and told me ‘no photography’ and I pointed at a sign at the entrance to the space saying ‘no flash photography’ and assured him that my flash was off. He got all hoity toity and said the sign was wrong and photography wasn’t allowed, just as another guard came in behind him with a group saying ‘photos are fine, but no flash photography is allowed’. Dickwad just scowled and walked away… there seemed to be a bit of, ‘this is my domain and I will make up the rules for you tourist-types as we go along’ mentality going on with the people who work in these buildings. Nevermind. I got some shots.
If you happen to be in DC, make sure you check out the Library of Congress gift shop – not only did they have lots of cool souvenirs, it was also a kick ass bookshop.
So far, we had managed to stay indoors all morning, thanks to a convenient tunnel that connected the Capitol Building and the Library of Congress, but now we had to put all them layers on and brave the cold to get down to the National Archives which was next on our list. We got about 200m down the road and even though it had warmed up to 0C and felt like -6C, we piked pretty quickly and took a cab. The wind was just bitterly cold.
Got down to the National Archives and saw that there was a line up out the door to get in! One guy behind me said, “We are so going to freeze our asses off out here. Oh well, I guess it’s all for the good of the Constitution.” Huh? … Holy shit, we were standing there only about three minutes absolutely freezing, and just about ready to pike, when a nice guy from Marshall County, Kentucky came up to us and said he had a booked school group going straight in a side door and he had space for seven more people and did we want to jump the queue! Hells yes! We joined in with his kids (who were apparently all from an honours class of some sort) and got straight in the door. Win!
Naturally I did NOT take that last photo! We got inside and saw the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution and the Bill of Rights which are all housed there. Unfortunately, none of these documents have been stored by fastidious Benedictine monks for the last two hundred years, so they are barely legible, quite faded and unhappy looking parchments. From the sections of the documents you could make out, you could see absolutely exquisite penmanship, the likes of which you just don’t see these days… though a little kid next to me was lamenting: “I can’t read any of it! Their handwriting is like, way too messy!” No Whinging Kid, that crap you call handwriting is chook scratchings! Other than that, I noticed the guards were carrying cool S&W revolvers, and I bought a red, white and blue, Democratic Donkey scarf in the gift shop as we left. 🙂
Thus ended our tour of the buildings today, with plenty more to hit tomorrow. Couldn’t get over how all these attractions are FREE. All of it, and only spied one donation box to throw a fiver into. Have to love that.