Washington DC

Date: 11th Feb

First night in DC was spent recovering from the travel. Those flights are becoming quite the killer. Next time I think I'll just explore everywhere by ship.

Second day was Air & Space Museum, the air side. Its been about 20 years since I was last here, and I'm not sure if it's a good thing or not that a lot of it is very familiar. Whilst museums are suppose to hold artefacts of the past, should they also keep fresh?

I will say they've done a good job at being at the level of kids and adults, the information is almost literally displayed at two levels. 

Day 3 has me in the morning doing the Space side of the Air and Space, including the planetarium. I think that they are limited by physical space, as there is definitely a lot more they could go in to, and hint that they have, but not display.

The afternoon is at the National Art Gallery which I feel was for me, better than the Lourve. Here I actually got to see some famous works by famous artists, without there being an overwhelming amount of it. I also found it fascinating that I could look up close at the paintings, no rope lines, no glass cases. It's also disturbing that some great works are only one mad mans knife slash away from being damaged forever.

The afternoon found me at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. I didn't have time to do the entire museum, obviously, but I did stumble into the geology and minerals section. It's possible that they've just got replicas on display, but there behind simple glass cabinets were some very expensive pieces of carbon. The Oppenheimer Diamond is 250 or so carat uncut diamond, just casually next to other equally expensive stones.

The temperature is only -2°C at the moment, but the windchill is significant, which is making DC rather cold.