Visiting the Smithsonian

Alternate exploration day today. I went out and visited the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum, which had lots of cool plans and space vehicles. Some parts felt quite dated, while others were brand new - depending heavily on how much corporate sponsorship they get I guess.

Also visited the Natural History museum next door which had good and bad parts. The section about mammals was underwhelming since it was just taxidermy versions of animals I've seen in real life, like elephants, lions, giraffes and so on. The minerals section was surprisingly interesting, including a several kilogram gold nugget, and the Hope Diamond as well. Also a few dinosaur skeletons.

I planned a day off tomorrow, so figured my last stop would be the Lincoln Memorial as we hadn't visited the day before. It was a bloody long walk and my feet were quite sore by the end, but I was glad to have made it. Interesting to read the text of the Gettysburg address written on the wall in stone.

Made a mess of getting home - I walked 20 minutes to the nearest subway stop, got the train then changed, but then got off a stop early by mistake! Since it's a point-to-point payment system and not a timed ticket, getting another train would cost me a couple of dollars, so I decided to walk. Unfortunately my phone compass sometimes points the complete opposite direction, so when I checked google maps to figure out which way I needed to go .. yeah. I should've checked again, because after 25 minutes I got to the previous station, not the station I needed to be at! I got the train back.Read more