Day 16: White House Blues

Today I got up super early, a fact I would pay for towards the end of the day. The challenge was to get to the Washington Monument Lodge by 7am to make sure I was in line to grab a ticket to go up the Monument itself. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to get there that early, but arriving at 7:30am wasn't actually that big of a deal, I was about 20th in line and when the ticket office opened, it moved quickly and I still was able to get my choice of times. So, no big deal.

After grabbing tickets, I got breakfast and then headed off to look at the White House. It's hard to walk the block because there are a lot of areas that you cannot go (American Security is starting to realllllllyyy annoy me) but the best view, I found, is from the south end. Mostly because you can approach the fence and get photos without bars in the way - plus it is less crowded than the North Side, which has guards, tourists and protesters.

View from the South

War Memorial (American has a lot of them)  halfway around the block

The Dwight Eisenhower Office Building

View from North end, as close as possible

To get a view over the fence was challenging

Then it was my turn to go up the Washington Monument. The reason it is a monument and not a memorial is because discussion for the project began before Washington died, as a thank you for his service (unpaid) during the Revolution. However, as it was being built, the Civil War broke out and held up construction for 20 years, resulting also in a change of stone source. As such, about 1/3rd of the way up the monument, it appears to change colour.

There's the Monument - you can see the colour change

In truth, the view wasn't that great. Probably because of the clouds. The humidity is pretty severe here. But also, the viewing area is very cramped and only has eight windows, which were all pretty dirty. But it is still worth the effort.

Whilst lining up to take the elevator, I met a family who had extra tickets for the Holocaust Museum. Unfortunately, lunch took too long to allow me into the Permanent Exhibit. In all honesty, I was extremely disappointed with the Museum. It started out alright with the small area covering the Cambodian Genocide and reflecting on what can be done to prevent future occurrences. But the area was so small and really deserved more than what was given (particularly with the almost complete throw away of Darfur and Rwanda (which were mentioned, but never explained)).

The other exhibits read a little like propaganda rather than factual information. The artifacts were very interesting, but what was written next to them ended with questions such as "what were they thinking?" and "why would they behave like this?" which was a little jarring. Also the focus was exclusively on the suffering of the Jewish people, despite mentioning the persecution of the polish and those with disabilities. Again, it felt more like throwing away their suffering. Sometimes the phrasing also came across anti-islamic, just after acknowledging that long running anti-Semitic thinking for the cause behind the holocaust. All in all, an uncomfortable experience, but not for the right reasons.

Feeling quite deflated, I went home early and enjoyed a quiet night in. I'm pretty tired and will sleep in tomorrow - I will head out to Arlington and the Pentagon and if I have time, finish up my time in the Washington Park area I have spent most of my time, still a lot to see there.