Home of the 62-Second Crosswalks
Posted on March 23, 2009
Filed Under Adventures, Museums & tours | 2 Comments
Posted by Sierra
Hooray! this is officially our 100th post! I dedicate it to all our friends and family who have let us park the RV at their house, and let us stay there.
Washington, D.C., as I’m sure you’re all aware, is our nation’s capital. It is filled with big, white, buildings and people in business suits. The crosswalks give you as long as 62 seconds to cross!
Today I’m going to be telling you about the International Spy Museum, the Senate Gallery, and the House Gallery.
International Spy Museum: Feel free to walk around with the theme from “Mission Impossible” in your head. I know I did. You start off by receiving a cover and a legend. You are given a rather short period of time to pick one and memorize it, and before long you enter a room where you see the movie “Could YOU be a Spy?” At least I think that’s what it’s called.
Anyway, next you enter this room that looks really spy-y. You test your cover, and receive your next mission. After that, you can float around, reading lots of panels and doing lots of activities, including:
* Identifying a type of threat
* Locating the familiar shapes of airplanes
* Climbing into a vent and listening to a conversation (which I think was mostly in Spanish)
* Spotting a disguised agent in a crowd.
You can also watch videos on a few subjects, such as lock picking (Note to self: Add “lock pick” to Wish List).
Next, you get to learn about the history of spying. Did you know that George Washington was a spymaster? He needed spies to help win the war. Also, Ben Franklin used his pen as a spy tool during the war: England asked Germany to fight with them against the colonies, but Franklin gave the Germans fake information and slipped pieces of paper to German soldiers promising free land if they didn’t fight with the British.
You also learn about famous people who turned out to be spies, like Julia Child. There’s a lot about spying during World War II and the Cold War. There’s some really interesting stuff about ciphers and other codes. There’s a little about torture, then you are tested on the details of your legend.
Another thing you can do at the Spy Museum is called Operation Spy. You go on a mission. I’m worried if I reveal the details of this mission, the Spy Museum people will track me down and kill me, so all I’ll tell you is that it involves a nuclear trigger. My lips are sealed.
Senate Gallery: It is no easy task to see the Senate Gallery. First, you have to go to the office of one of your senators and ask for tickets. Then, when you get to the Capitol, you have to go through security to get into the Capitol. Then you have to follow a special route to the Senate Gallery. You have to check all electronics, including car door openers. Then you have to take an elevator. You have to go through security—again— to make sure you didn’t:
A) Forget to check some electronic— I saw one woman have to go all the way back because she still had her cell phone
B) Sneak in some food from the cafeteria
C) Somehow manage to hide a firearm and plan to murder a senator
After you go through security, you go into the Senate Gallery viewing area, which is basically a few rows of seats circling the place where it looks like the ceiling should be over the Gallery. You are very specifically told where to sit. There are medical bags underneath all the seats. Mom suspects the bags include defibrillators.
At this point I would like to mention that when we were touring the Capitol the day before we went to the Senate Gallery, some EMS guys ran by us when we were in the Crypt. The guide nonchalantly said that this was typical, but that doesn’t mean I believed him.
Anyway I think it would be really funny if a senator needed one of those medical bags and someone threw it to him and, in the process, HIT ANOTHER SENATOR ON THE HEAD! Boy, that would be hilarious. “Senator knocked out by medical bag.” Too bad that didn’t happen. It would’ve made a good blog post.
On a good day in the Senate, you get to watch one of their one-person debates. See, not very many senators were there at the same time before it was time to vote, so the ones that were there pretty much spoke and left. When the time came to vote, however, they swarmed in. Some left, but most stayed. To vote, a senator would give a thumbs up or thumbs down. Mom said it was a little like an auction. You’ve gotta admit, “Mr. Betterman, Mr. Betterman, no.” sounds a teensy bit like “Going once, going twice, sold to Mr. Betterman for the very generous sum of no!” Dad said it was a little like C-SPAN Live.
Famous faces included:
* Senator Kerry
* Senator McCain
* Senator Dodd
* Senator Whitehouse
* Senator Udall (both of them)
* Senator Jones
* Senator Bingaman ***
House Gallery: Getting into the House Gallery is like getting into the Senate Gallery. You have to check electronics, go through security, etc., etc., etc. The way the House votes, however, is different. Each representative slips a little card into a machine and presses Yay or Nay. A long list tells how each representative voted and another keeps track of the name of the bill, the time left to vote, and the number of Yays and Nays.
So those are a few of the attractions in Washington, D.C. I personally think that Washington, D.C., should create a personal anthem that is similar to “The Star-Spangled Banner,” except it should end in, “And the home of the 62-second crosswalks.”
*** One of these was made up. Can you guess which one?
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Ummm….Sierra – the Spy Museum called our house looking for you. They said you revealed too many details in your blog post!
Oh, shoot. My New Year’s Resolution was to not have to go into witness protection!