Washington 3 – Capitol Hill, White House and the Museum of American History

Such a beautiful day.  And off to the centre of the free world (not my words).

A distant view of Capitol Hill.

And here we are, inside!  Time for a tour.  Quite an interesting building (smaller than I expected though).  Unfortunately I was not allowed to take many photos so you will just have to imagine.  We managed to drop into a session of the Senate and the House of Representatives which were rather less exciting than I expected.  Firstly, they were quite empty (I guess maybe the wrong time) and secondly it seemed to involve people running up to make 30-60 second speeches bashing one party or another.  In my ignorance I lost interest…

Underneath the dome.

Ah yes.  The real centre of power.  The Old Supreme Court.  Now they meet in the building across the road.

Or at least why I have a job…  The nine chairs of the supreme court justices.

And of course a concerned citizens exercising their rights.

The road to the voice of the people.

And the building across the road.  So after all of this excitement it was time to go for lunch.

At the roof top bar at PoV at the W Hotel.  Very yummy cheese burger (if a little small!).  But compensated for by the view of:

A famous little white house.

But not as stunning from behind.  One thing that struck me was how small it was!  It must have a really big basement!  We thought about dropping by, but apparently you need to apply to your local senator to get in.  Oh well.

So instead we walked around the white house.  Mr. Squirrel was also as interested in the scenery as I was.

Next stop was the Museum of American History.

And in we went.

The back door

Freedom is not free

It had quite a bit about war and conquest.

But all is not depressing!  There was also a very interesting section on the history of transportation.

And so I was booted out promptly at 5:30.

But I hung around outside to get some nice sunset photos.