We set our alarm to wake us up to make our scheduled tour of the Capitol Building. Google maps showed a subway train that would get us to the Capitol for our scheduled tour but, unfortunately, that train never came so we took the next one, which got us to the capitol a few minutes late. Lucky for us, there were open spots in the next tour so they just had us join that group. It was a neat tour. We saw the old rooms of the Senate, the House of Representatives, and even the Federal Court before it they were moved to their current locations. Then we were brought to the dome room, which was gorgeous. We weren't allowed in the actual House or Senate, one has to get a pass through their congressperson or house representative, but they made easy to do that after the Capitol building tour if you wanted. We had timed tickets to the African American museum this afternoon so we bypassed that tour.
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| The original Supreme Court |
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| The original Senete |
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| The original Senate |
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| The original House of Representatives |
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| Dome room |
It was on this tour that Laurie Burgess of the Smithsonian Institute emailed me back. I had emailed her on Friday to see if any of my ancestor's peices were on display. My great, great, great grandmother Helen Kunzie collected peices from the Umatilla Natives near her house in Eastern Oregon. She had quite the extensive collection and tried to sell it to the Smithsonian Institute for a substantial amount of money in the 1890's. The Smithsonian ended up only buying two peices: one was a stone effigy with a faint trace of a face carved into it that the Smithsonian had in it's archives. The second piece was a brass weapon called a Patu, which was traded off of Captain Cook's ship on his 3rd voyage. This peice was repatriated back to the tribe a number of years ago but they had casted a duplicate that was painted to look indistinguishable from the real one (but much lighter!) She was available tomorrow morning to show us both peices! We excitedly jumped on that opportunity!
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| Capital building |
We ate our lunch in the cafeteria before walking over to the African American museum. They had great displays. The Sports and Music rooms where fun: Michael Jordan's jersey (big enough to be a dress on me), M.C. Hammer's pants, a performance outfit of Michael Jackson, instruments from Prince, Arethra Franklin, Coltrane, Sly and the Family Stone, and numerous other famous musicians. We staid until closing at 5:00pm. We still had some time to kill before doors open for the concert so we grabbed some dinner at a British food restaurant next door to the Anthem.
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| The National Museum of Afrian American History & Culture |
For Christmas this last year, Mat bought me tickets to my favorite muscian, Noel Gallagher, who was performing at the local venue while we were here. I was very excited for the show. After dinner we were able to get into the theater and find our seats. Mat bought us tickets right over the stage on the left side 3rd floor. It was a great concert: he played great songs off his new album, my favorites from his prior two albums, and even a few Oasis songs. It was just fantastic! Out at 10:00pm, we walked home.
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| Noel Gallagher |
We heard the Obamas where in town today for the revealing of their portraits at the National Portrait Gallery. So we did get to be in Washington DC at the same time as the Obamas!!!! And Noel Gallgher too!
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| Jefferson Memorial at night |
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| Washington Memorial at night |
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