Washington DC - Day 2

Main hall of National Museum of Natural History

I arrived back to Fairfax late on Monday night and I was absolutely exhausted. It’s  hard work and lots of walking to go through all those museums and monuments. For Day # 2 I had a very similar plan of action than day 1, just walk around and see as much as possible!

After updating the blog in the morning and charging my iPhone I took the local transportation system to DC again. This time though I took the long way around. You know how it goes when in new city: you just take the bus that you think is right without double checking it. And so 1,5 hours later I got myself to the Smithsonian (which is where all the monuments and museums are). My goal today was to spend a good amount of time in the National Museum of Natural History. And then maybe check out the American History Museum that was right next to it.

The Natural History Museum was probably the BEST museum I’ve been so far (though noted I haven’t been to that many).  I spent a good 3 hours just walking around the museum and observing the exhibits. And it was great to see the famous T-Rex skeleton along with the other archeological findings and exhibits they had.  It was a bone show! And it was great to see them in real size to give you a proper idea how they looked like.  Funny enough I didn’t actually know what to expect for the rest of the museum, but it was all interesting. The Oceans Exhibit, Early Man and evolution (saw Lucy there!) Mammals and fall of dinosaurs, Insects, the Titanoboa & Crystals and Minerals where I got to see the “Hope- Diamond”.

Hope Diamond

A great museum. After the museum I had to find a place to eat and I decided to go to movies to give my legs a brake from walking. I saw the new Judge Dredd which.. well .. was entertaining. Still didn’t give proper justice to the comics I think. There could’ve been so much more exploring to the world done. In other words the movie was done in too small scale and closed environment. Anyway.. it did it’s purpose.

I still had couple of monuments I wanted to visit and after the movie it had gotten dark already. And it was actually a really spooky looking night. There was a strong mist that had fallen on top of the city which made every corner a really “dreamy” looking. You could almost expect something to go down that night. I walked through the city and back to the National Mall where I wanted to go and take a look at the Lincoln Memorial – which was the most spectacular of them all. The lighting of the memorial was just perfect and combined with the mist it was truly majestic looking peace of American history.

On my way back I managed to catch one of the last Metro’s going to Fairfax but once I arrived I realized after waiting for 45minutes that the last bus has gone already. The reason why I waited for that long was that there was another guy waiting for the bus and he had a friend coming in the last bus to pick him up. Unfortunately after that 45 min the bus driver informed that he would not do another turn and would give up for the night while coming that way.

So I took a cab and got back around midnight.

Another full day. And next up it’s Lancaster, Pennsylvania and then NY.