DC: Final Day

Was a supertourist today - visited more museums and monuments than seemed possible.

Yesterday had an early start for the Pentagon tour organised by a friend of D+A who works at the Australian embassy... lots of security obvious after arriving at the Pentagon metro station. Passed through security and made it to reception, where a very serious young marine in a white dress uniform took our details then we sat and watched military types mill around for a while.

There were about 20 people on our tour - all American other than us, as far as I could tell. We were guided at the front and the back by soldiers in full uniform who were actually pretty friendly. The solider at the front conducted the tour while walking backwards at the front of the tour group. It was incredibly impressive. They would yell out the tour commentary while walking backwards at full pace, knowing exactly where to stop and where all the doors and escalators were. The Pentagon is a very-dated-looking building made of reinforced concrete (notwithstanding that a major renovation is almost completed). We saw a new entrance hall completed only in the past couple of weeks. It is absolutely huge and seems very well-organised. We stopped at 'ground zero'where the plane hit on 911 and saw a moving memorial to people lost on 911. Considering that the tour fundamentally involved walking around an office building while being closely observed, it was pretty good. The workers at the Pentagon include many fit people with short, neat hair.

Yesterday afternoon spent about 3 hours at the National Gallery of Art. It was amazing - even better than I remember it from 8 years ago. A great collection of Christian religious art, with a very strong collection from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. A number of Vermeers. A Da Vinci. Many impressionists. Many Rembrandts. etc. So much stuff! Unsurprisingly, a strong collection of US artists. The West building (the older building containing the older art) is absolutely beautiful, with perfect lighting and is a great space to show off art. The East building is very modern, and also a great space - although it seems fairly inefficient (ie. it is big, but has far less space to display art).

Late night headed down to Georgetown. A very nice and upmarket area - lots of great shops - then dinner at Zed's, a really good Ethiopian restaurant.

Today, started off at the Air & Space Museum. Fascinating and an amazing collection. The original Wright Bros plane, the Apollo spacecraft that landed on the moon (plus lots of artefacts from the Apollo missions), many planes through the history of aviation plus lots more. And all fantastically-well displayed. A really really good museum.

Next a very quick run-through at the Natural History Museum. Looked great, but we only really lingered at a special exhibition looking at the lives of ants. Totally fascinating and great photography. We appeared to be the only adults there without children.

We then spent some time at the Museum of American History. A section on the Presidents was really good. A pretty good section on different aspects of society, focusing on Jewish immigrants and African-American slavery. Marni was surprisingly underwhelmed by a section on the history of electricity. A section on Black America was really interesting.

A wander in the sun and we arrived at the Holocaust Museum. There were no passes left to the permanent exhibition, but an exhibition of a jewish child's life in Germany through the 1930s and into the 1940s was very affecting. And an exhibition of Nazi propaganda was fascinating.

Four museums down and we went for a walk in the sun (on our aching feet)... the Jefferson monument, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt monument (particularly good) and the Lincoln monument (absolutely crammed full of people - Americans are absolutely crazy about Abraham Lincoln). A great view from the Lincoln Memorial all the way down the National Mall to the Capitol Building.

A quick taxi ride to the National Portrait Museum & Museum of American Art. Another great museum, but unfortunately we only had slightly over an hour as it was getting towards closing time. It was in the most amazingly impressive building; the original US patent office and the location of Lincoln's second inauguration ball. An incredible colletion of portraits of each of the Presidents, plus a fantastic collection of portraits. Plus a spectactular collection of American art, which we had far too little time to review.

A low-key dinner, then a night in - badly needed after being out every night for a week.

Tomorrow Philadelphia.