Lancaster & UK

National Gallery of Art: Afghanistan's Hidden Treasure

[Image from www.nga.gov ]This is a truly amazing exhibition showing bits and pieces of Afghanistan's history. For those who have read/seen the kite Runner (or even better, A thousand splendid suns [Khaled Hosseini]) this exibition gives an image to many places you have read about.

The treasures are truly amazing. I found a video on national graphic [Video]. giving some background information about the treasures. I found another video that shows more the items of the treasure. Just click on this Youtube Video (and ignore the voices).

The gallery has other famous works as well, just to mention a few artists: Picasso, Matisse, Giacometti, Lichtenstein, Miro. My favorite picture of this museum is a work from Picasso: La Tragedy.
A nice little place is the coffee on the ground floor: there is a little artificial waterfall. You can see it very close through a glass wall. Looks amazing.

US Capitol

I put myself up to go to the US Capitol this morning. Just before 8am, I arrived at the kiosk. There was already a little queue of about 50 people waiting there. Within half an hour, the queue grew bigger and bigger (and I was actually quite happy having been there :) ... My tour was scheduled for 9.30 am (much too early to grap a coffee from somewhere as everything opens at 10am).

The capitol itself is a cool place. The rotunda (dome) is really impressive. 'lying in state' happens to president (so basically one day Bush's coffin will 'lay in state') and people can come in for condolences... if you have not been president of America, but you have done something extraordinary, then you can 'lay in honor' (so your coffin will also be put in the rotonda). The first women that 'lay in honor' was Miss Rosa Park.

You can take photos inside and get a nice tour that explains the meaning of the images, pictures and statues. Unfortunately, on Saturdays the galleries are closed. The Americans seem to love the Greek ideals. There were plenty of them on the pictures.

My Group is on YouTube

Yesterday, we found the video my working group here produced on the last christmas party. You have to check this one out. The cool thing is that even my mentor is in it. Imagine your boss or prof would be part of it!
YouTube Link

Eating out in DC

Eating out here is much better than anticipated. In DC you have a huge choice in food: just on my corner, there is an Afghan restaurant, an Indian and a Lebanese restaurant. Unfortunately, all need still to be tried. For the friends of spicy food: there is a lot of Mexican food around. And hearing Spanish (pardon Mexican) in the street is quite common. Adam-Morgans (just a little walk away) has a choice of everything and the African food places there are recommended by many. Italian is very 'in' here (hence is far more in the expensive food region). In my guide list, there is even a German restaurant :)

The supermarket offer a good choice. And with a little effort you can eat your traditional food
So far, i have tried some Mexican food (nice) [trying out some grilled cactus leaves], Persian food (also very nice) and looking forward to many good dishes.

There is one thing that is quite nice here too: most of the portions are quite big (and there is now way that I can finish them) ... but you can ask for getting the food boxed without earning any of these special looks. So eating out once is most of the time two meals.

A huge monument tour...

The day started not that great. We wanted to go to the Washington Monument but the tickets for the day were all gone :(.

However,from the monument you have still a nice view to the Capitol. Walking  towards the reflective Basin, we passed by the World War II Memorial (finished in 2004). The Memorial is truly impressive, especially the concave wall that hosts 4 000 gold stars standing for the 400 000 soldiers that lost their life there. And the inscription 'Here we mark the price of freedom'.

Two more memorials before arriving to the famous Lincoln Memorial. The Washington DC Memorial (for all the people from Washington DC who died in WWI and then the Korean War Memorial. Especially the later  is again quite impressive with its black granit and the sculptures showing soldiers.

From there, we arrived at the Lincoln Memorial. He sits there in Greek looking temple  (a magnet for many people). From there  you have a fantastic view to the Washington Monument and the Capitol. Walking back, on the other side there is the Vietnam Veteran Memorial. That one was probably the most moving: on the granit blocks you see all the names engraved of those who  lost their lives... and relatives come to look for the name, leaving often a flower or a note.

In the evening, we went to the Iwo Jima Statue which is based on a picture that showed four soldiers after hissing the american flag on a rocky mountain on Iwo Jima (in Japan). Of the 21,000 Japanese soldiers present at the beginning of the battle, over 20,000 were killed. We were there in the evening; you have  quite a stunning view to the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Museum and the Capitol.

 

The National Air and Space Museum

Apparently, If you have only time for one museum, this should be your choice. I have no comparison yet but it was quite impressive. you can touch some real moon rocket there!

And there are plenty of the 'real' machines, for instance Hidenburgs machine who did the first transatlantic flight from America to Paris. The magnet of the Museum is clearly the space race. You see the moon car, some of the space ships, all the astronauts, old video material of the time, plenty of turbines and mechanical details of the air crafts. And if you take some time to look around, you will see plenty of young boys with sparkling eyes (dreaming of being either an astronaut or a jet pilot). The museum is huge and also a good magnet and surely worth a visit.

The International Spy Museum

The International Spy Museum is definitely worth a visit for everybody who loves spy films, books or simply the gadgets James Bond had to play with. I took the combi-ticket for $25 for an interactive spy mission and the museum.
The interactive mission is kind of interesting (though I think all engineers and computer scientist are mostly figuring out how they did it which might spoil the fun. One hour of a mission within a group and you get even feedback how well you performed (in decrypting phone calls, or searching a room of an important person ;-)

The museum itself is made nicely. First, some basics terms of spying are explained followed by some really cool gadgets (lipstick revolver, secret message decoder suit case, bomb builder suitcase, microdot, ....
This follows then a long track of spying in the 'old times' starting with the Chinese, Romans, Middleage, Elizabeths and Mary Queen of Scots up to First World War. Impressive where the pigeons that flew messages from one side to the next (some of them taking photos behind the enemies line etc). One pigeon even saved a whole troop (brave little bird!)... Spying during World War II, and in the Cold War. The Cold War period feels a bit glorified as the "golden age of spying"... the museum pictures many stories of secret agents who got detected, and their fate. (and of course the 'How' and 'Why').
Together with the interactive mission, we spent five hours there and had a good time.

Washington National Cathedral

This is the 6th largest church building in the world. And twenty minutes walk away from my place. The outside of the Cathedral reminded my immediately of York's Cathedral (in England). Just a bit bigger. The interior feels huge. The architect chose English gothic style.. There are beautiful stained glass windows telling the story of humanity (from creation until going to space)

One of these windows is called the Space Window: According to my guide, the stained glass incorporates a sliver of moon rock from Apollo II. I think that is quite a cool idea for a window (see image... source taken from image22.webshots.com)

"I have a dream" was preached here by Dr Martin Luther King Jr on Sunday March 31, 1968... (just 4 four days later he was assassinated).

There are plenty of other noteworthy things to say about this building. I am sure a source like Wikipedia has plenty of details. A final interesting note: the building was completed in 1990; so quite a young building.

Relocated, finally!

After staying in the Mariott Wardman Hotel for three nights, I moved to my final destination. I don't like hotels and even five stars couldn't change my opinion on that.... but the new apartment is 'awesome' (a word loved and highly used by my American friends). BTW, they noted out my Britisch-German-Something accent (apparently I use words that sound 'so victorian'...)

Anyway, my place is great. I have no clue how big. The living-eating rooms has two sofas, a little desktop, a TV and a table with four chairs. Plus an quite a bit of free space. I do have a balcony! A little kitchen (having all the essential such as plates, cups, cutlery) A huge bedroom, a HUGE wardrobe (which is actually a little room). Another small storage room. And a bathroom.

All I expected was a room consisting of kitchen-bedroom-living-room and a corner designed to be the bathroom... but this one is HUGE. For the nice things: it has an air conditioner and dish washer. What a treat!
More pictures of the apartment can be found here.

I am in the uni news!

I had my 15 minutes of fame. I am in the Uni news (with picture). For my little teaching certificate. *huray*. The full article can be found here