The Smithsonian

Thursday afternoon was quite the experience! Let me tell you something, though--if you ever go to Washington D.C. and you want to see the Smithsonian, there's no possible way you can see much of anything in one afternoon! I'd say you would need at least a day for each building to truly appreciate it. I could not believe how HUGE the buildings were!

Despite the short amount of time we had, my dad and I were bound and determined to see two of the museums: The Air and Space Museum (my dad pictured with the sign above left) and The Museum of American History (me in front of the building pictured right). My dad and I joked about how we needed to see two things before we left Washington D.C.: "The Spirit of St. Louis" (the plane Charles Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic Ocean) and Dorothy's red slippers from The Wizard of Oz. My dad wanted to see the former and I wanted to see the latter. Well, as you can see by the pictures below, we did what we set out to do!



I've used this word a lot when describing any part of the trip, but it is so fitting: "overwhelming." That's what it was like walking into the museums, especially the Air and Space Museum. There was SO much to see and do, that all we could really do was look around, eat at the largest and strangest McDonald's in the world (in my opinion!), snap a few pictures, and buy a few souvenirs at a gift shop. You would not believe the sheer size of these buildings!

For example, here's the Museum of Natural History from the outside, which we did not even attempt to step into due to time and exhaustion:


And don't even get me started about the Metro. That was an experience-and-a-half for sure, and one I don't think I really want to repeat too often! But that's another story...