Peacock room at Freer Gallery Today Dean and I went to the Smithsonian. We began by driving to a park-and-ride. We got the very last parking spot, and Dean had to get out of the car and help me get into the very tight space. I think it took like 15 minutes. Then we rode the Metro from East Falls Church to the Smithsonian, during the middle of rush-hour (about 8:00am). It was horrible! We had to stand the whole time and be constantly squeezed by the mass of people.
Once we got to the Smithsonian, we visited the Castle. We purchased a membership, which gives us a year subscription to the magazine and discounts on all the shops, eateries, imax, etc. After a short bite to eat at the Castle Cafe, and a tour of the Castle, we laid out our plan of attack and went out. We started at the Freer Gallery, which had a Chinese/Japanese exhibit. Extraordinary! The picture above is from that building. The story goes that Whistler designed the peacock as a metaphor about the dispute he was having with his patron, Leyland, over payment, whilst Leyland was traveling out of country.
Then we went to the National Museum of Natural History. We saw dinosaur bones (Dean liked those best), fossils, geology/gems, and a special Korea exhibit. In the gem section we saw the Hope diamond, and a 42,000 carat yellow topaz that was the size of my head! We then ate a delicious lunch at the Atrium Cafe, consisting of bbq beef sandwich, yukon potatoes, broccoli, and mac/cheese. Yummers! Afterwards we saw a 3-D Imax movie about lions in Africa. Twas cool!
After we got home, we rested for a while, then drove to downtown Arlington to have dinner at Chevy's (TexMex), then strolled the Ballston mall that the Chevy's was attached to. After that we came home, and now we're nursing sore back, hurt knees, sore feet, sore hip, etc. I hope to have pictures up on webshots later this evening. Stay tuned. So, after 2 hours of uploading, I finally have pics up at webshots: here.
Chinese vessels made of glass about 3,500 years old!
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