Tura thought the Virgin Mary was an alien. He was right.
Wednesday was wild. After an awesome breakfast, we all loaded onto the buses to go to Arlington National Cemetery. Myself and a few French horns decided not to see anything at the place, because all of us had either seen the cemetery before or didn't care to do so. One of them called someone on our bus to let them know we wouldn't be returning to the bus with the band. I bought replicas of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights (all of which are now on my dorm room wall) from the gift shop and we trekked out into the cold day. After getting confused, turning around and asking for directions, we finally started out towards the Lincoln Memorial. To our delight, we found a Metro station along the way and didn't have to walk.
After struggling to decipher the riddle of the Metro ticket machine, we finally figured it all out and managed to buy one day passes on the extremely convenient public transportation system of Washington, D.C. From the Arlington station, we rode to the Smithsonian station, where we got off the Metro to find ourselves smack in the middle of the National Mall. While we're on the subject, I'd just like to say that I'm not very fond of the name "National Mall" to describe a long strip of grass. It's not a mall, and someone should change the name to avoid misleading the unknowing public.
Well, turns out the other guys wanted to go see the White House. Since I only had a limited amount of time to see the stuff on my extensive list of sites, I bid them all adieu and started searching for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. I walked all over the place near the Bureau before I found it, and by the time I got inside my jacket was thoroughly coated in falling snow. I was cold and wet but satisfied to have found my first target. I had arrived just in time to tag along the next tour group. Our guide showed us the process the government uses to print all the money we use to buy things with. Turns out they mostly print new bills to replace old ones that are destroyed by wear and/or tear.
After that tour, I started off for the Freer Gallery of Art, tour map in hand and cordoroy gloves hoping to keep my hands warm. Upon entering the museum, I noticed that all the exhibits seemed to be from China and India and such. I asked one of the receptionists what was in the museum, and when she replied mostly Asian art, I headed back out the door in search of my next target. Turns out, my next target wasn't much better. The Hirshhorn Museum ended up being full of mostly modern art and sculptures, my two least-favorite types. I browsed the first three floors, then to save time I skipped viewing the fourth.
Third, I paid a quick visit to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. I saw Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis, the Wright Brothers' original 1903 airplane, and even got to touch a piece of moonrock. That was all for that museum, though. I cut the Supreme Court and Library of Congress out of my path and went straight for the National Gallery of Art instead. The National Gallery was incredibly huge and incredibly awesome. The bottom floor, which consisted of new acquisitions and some sculpture, was rocking. A ton of Rodin and Degas sculptures were included in the collection, and I was amazed at how lifelike they looked. It was as if the sculptures were a snapshot of motion. They had some really old-school religious sculptures, too.
My other time in the National Gallery was spent surveying the Italian third of the top floor. It had quite a few big-name works, including Donatello's St. George and the Dragon and da Vinci's Ginevra de' Benci. But it had some weird-uns, too. Gian Frederico Madruzzo by Giovanni Battista Moroni, Madonna and Child in a Garden by Cosme Tura, and Saint Paul by Bernardo Daddi, to name a few. Anyway, I spent a solid hour and a half looking at the Italian collection upstairs, then decided to save the rest (French, English, and American) for my next visit. In fact, I didn't even enter the other building, which had a bunch of recent American stuff. But I had to cut it short.
Next came the National Archives, which were very crowded. We saw a movie on the history of the founding documents, which was really cool. It even showed how they made the containers which now hold the Three Big Ones (the Declaration, Constitution, and Bill of Rights). The movie National Treasure did a good job of recreating the inside of the Archives building, in my opinion. After the film, we went through an exhibit that had some cool oldschool documents by people. Then, on to the main attraction, the Three Big Ones.
The line to see the six sheets of dried animal skin with faded ink took about thirty minutes to get through, during which I listened to the entertaining banter of some University of Texas percussionists who were visiting with their band. A bunch of people kept taking flash pictures of the documents, despite the guard's best efforts to stop people from doing so. So he banned the use of cameras. Anyway, I got to see the parchments, and it was definitely worth the wait to see them in person. Oddly enough, a handprint can be distinguished in the lower left-hand corner of the Declaration. I thought it was interesting.
After leaving the Archives and wandering aimlessly around the streets of D.C. for about fifteen minutes, I managed to find Ford's Theatre, which was just shutting down. I got a picture of the stage, the box where Lincoln was shot, and the clothes that he was wearing at the time of the assassination. Turns out there were seven other conspirators in the plot. From the museum underneath the theatre, I learned that Booth had sent another guy to kill the Vice-President the same day that he shot Lincoln. The other guy got drunk and chickened out, instead. He still got caught and got executed anyway, though.
I left the theatre just as it closed and was disappointed to find that across the street the house where Lincoln died had just closed, also. I hadn't previously planned on visiting the house, but I suppose that's something else I'll have to do next time around. So I made my way to the International Spy Museum, which I had found online to be open until 6 PM. But alas, I was five minutes too late to get a ticket! So instead, I meandered towards the Supreme Court to get a glimpse of it from the outside. My parents were supposed to meet me that night to hang out and have some dinner, so I figured I'd just walk around and look at stuff until my mom's plane got into town, instead of making the trip back to the hotel.
So I headed off in the direction of the Supreme Court to get a look at the building. But on my way I happened to see the Senate office buildings, so I thought I'd stop in on my senator to thank him for the tickets to the ceremony, even though I couldn't go. The first building was the wrong one, so I had to walk to the one next to it. But to no avail, for he was already gone. Two of his aides were closing up shop, so I left a note for the senator with them and left.
The Supreme Court and Library of Congress were both closed, but I got to see them from the outside. Then I headed off to the Metro station, since I'd realized that it'd probably be another two hours or so before my mom got into town. Unfortunately, my telephone died in the middle of my conversation with my mother, so I got off the train at one of the stops and managed to find an electrical outlet behind a bush in some random corner of a business-building hallway. My mom said to go ahead and go back to the hotel. I got some Ritz Bitz Sandwiches at a Rite Aid (where some Hispanic guy was talking in Spanish with one of the employees - crazy) and got back on the train to begin the craziness.
First off, I went all way to the end of the orange Metro line, like I thought I was supposed to do. I got off the transit and tried to find the bus I was supposed to ride. My cell phone ran all up out of battery life, so I was able to pull off a five-second phone call to the B to ask him which bus I was supposed to ride back to the hotel. He said "401," but all I saw was 402 and 403. So I was pretty confused and looked at a map. Then I realized that I was at the wrong Metro station. So I got back on the Metro and went back a spot on the orange line. Then I got off and found 401 eventually, and got on the bus after paying my $1.
Well, after a while I started to wonder when my stop was coming up, because it had been about fifteen minutes on the bus and I still hadn't reached the hotel or seen anything familiar. So I called my mom and she told me to ask the bus driver what in the world was going on. So I asked. "When do we get to Tyson's Corner?" I asked. "Oh man, you're on the wrong bus!" he said. Luckily, the bus going the right way had just pulled up across the street, and I ran across and got on. About twenty minutes later, I finally made it to the hotel. Dinner and talk with the parents was great, and the warmth of the hotel restaraunt was pretty OK, too. After some wireless Internet in the hotel lobby, I hit the sack. But not before learning that everyone who had returned to the bus after Arlington got stuck in D.C. traffic for about six hours. Man, not getting back on that bus was pure genius.
The day of the parade we all went through crazy security, then sat around waiting for the parade to start in some warmed tent on the Mall. Finally, we started marching off for what would hopefully be my last marching band experience of all time. we rounded the corner parallel to the Capitol and started playing. There were cops stinking everywhere, along with a crazy amount of random military personnel. I even saw two snipers standing on top of a building near the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.
When we passed the back of the White House, I managed to get a quick glimpse of the President. He waved at us and smiled. I even saw Dick Cheney standing a little more to the right behind that huge super-bulletproof glass thing they were watching from. Anyway, we marched a few miles more and that was it. My marching career was finished.
The ride home was even longer than the way there. I saw Dodgeball, which wasn't nearly as good as people had made it out to be. I thought about writing this story, but only got around to writing the outline instead. But anyway, I finally got it done, as you can see. So "here I stand; I can do no other." Anyone know where that quote is from? That was a classic Martin Luther, pansies. I bested the Metro and the bus system and was one of the only members of the band to actually get to see some of the sites of the city. Basically, as a tourist, I triumphed. Hard.
