Washington, DC, day one
Posted by: mestes <mestes@...>
Our flights were good. Nothing to be nervous about at all. When we got to the airport in Nashville, they searched all our bags. Took all the things out of the bags and then repacked them. When we went through the metal detectors to get to the boarding areas, Chris left everything in his pockets. They pulled him aside and made searched him thoroughly. They ran the wand over him and he kept taking things out of his pockets and had to take off his belt. Then, they patted him down. Of course, we were standing off to the side snickering at him. When he finished and was allowed to proceed, he stated that he "kinda liked that." Needless to say, when we went through the routine to return home, his pockets were empty and his belt was in the suitcase. LOL
We got there on Wednesday afternoon and rushed to the Russell Senate Building for a tour of the Capitol. We started off lost (spent most of the vacation lost!). We got directions from another pedestrian (a really nice man) and made only 15 minutes late. The intern that did the tour walked in right behind us, so we didn't hold anyone up. She had forgotten and was late herself.
Whe took us on a really ncie tour of the Capitol building. We saw the statues, the paintings, the carvings, the rotunda. It was all quite moving. Each state is allowed to place 2 statues in the Capitol Building. Will Rogers has a statue there. He was the only living person to have his statue placed there while alive. He wanted placed so he could look out the window down the Mall. I walked to that window and looked down the stretch of the Mall past the Washington Memorial all the way to the Lincoln Memorial. There are no words to describe the feelings I had standing there in our nation's capitol looking at those historic places.
The paintings in the Capitol are so beautiful, so moving. It was like being surrounded by the very men who made our nation's history.
We saw a session of the Senate meeting. There was one, lone senator making a speech explaining his Bill, the stenographer taking it all down and several other people milling about. I didn't see one more senator in the room. I explained to Sam that even though the other senators were not there, they would read the speech and the bill and then they would all gather to vote on it later. It was important. I knew it was important. This is how our laws are made.
We were unable to go into the House of Representatives meeting. They were in a closed meeting and no one was allowed in. Security was tight, but everyone was extremely polite and almost reverent.
I found that all the government employees were extremely polite. I wasn't expecting that. It's a shame that our local government employees are not so well mannered.
After our tour of the Capitol, we went to Union Station to eat. They've got a good food court there with lots of different kinds of foods. Chris and I had agreed that we would eat only food that we cannot get at home. Keep in mind that I live in a SMALL town in Middle Tennessee and that includes lots of reasonable types of foods that we can get in Nashville. Anyhow, I had fresh fish and Chris had sushi. We all agreed that fish should be cooked! LOL Since the sushi wasn't edible, he had Cajun chicken to make up for it. Mike had spaghetti and Sam had pizza. They were not interested in our exotic cuisine.
Then, it was on to the hotel and a nice rest for the next day.
Gonna run for now, got schoolwork to supervise.
Dana