Out and about in the District

I was fortunate enough to spend more time seeing D.C. this trip, instead of just the inside of hotel meeting rooms. I got there early enough Sunday afternoon to do some rambling, and went out on other excursions Monday and Tuesday nights. Which allowed me to take enough pictures to make three posts out of the trip. [see my description of the National Portrait Museum here]

This photo of the Washington Monument was taken on our walk from the Smithsonian Metro station, across the National Mall, to the Portrait Museum, which is a few blocks north. It was a lovely day, and I'd like to have walked more, but there wasn't that much daylight (or energy) left after a long multi-modal travel day.

I really wish the meeting had been held a couple of weeks later, so that I could have seen this fabulous public space crowded with sanity-seeking kindred spirits. But, as it was, almost empty, it was still worth a photo or two.

In addition to monuments, the Mall is chock-a-block with museums. The newest is the National Museum of the American Indian, which we visited shortly after it opened, a few years ago, on a pre-blog Washington trip. This time, I was there after hours, but there was enough light left as we approached it to snap a facet of its unique architecture:

I got to go on this excursion back to the Mall with some friends by virtue of being in the right place at the right time. They happened to have an extra ticket to a lecture on the aurora borealis given by a Norwegian space physicist. [It didn't having anything to do with Native Americans, except a few references to prehistoric peoples' legends about the lights; the lecture's sponsors just took advantage of the nice auditorium in the new museum.]

What an interesting, educational, and all together Washingtonian outing! We finished up the evening with dinner at a nearby pub, which accounted for some of my London reminiscing.

Although cultural destinations like the American Indian Museum are the architectural jewels of the capital, I think most of the government buildings are impressive in their own right, as well. And not only the buildings. We happened to walk by this appropriate little garden plot, complete with stalks of corn, outside of one of the Agriculture Department's buildings; again, right on the Mall:


And non-governmental, or formerly governmental, buildings, are eye-catching all around, too. Thanks to google maps I was able to identify the handsome church you see on the left as the Calvary Baptist Church on 8th Street, spotted as we left the Portrait Museum.

One of the buildings visible from my hotel room that I initially couldn't identify is the Old Post Office, now a shopping/dining/entertainment venue.
It was the landmark that guided us from the Mall to the Museum. Fortunately there was just enough light when we passed it after dinner Sunday for me to take the snap below.

One of my friends said it looks like a castle—don't you agree?


This miscellany is just a tiny tidbit of what's neat to see in Washington, but I was glad to be out and about even just this much. It's a city we can be proud of as our capital, and I enjoy every visit.