White House, Holocaust and Pedicabs

The only picture taken on our day in DC due to WH rules. 

Thanks to our tour guide Mike for bringing his camera phone :)

We had a set date and time for our White House tour.  We were to meet at a certain point but I had no idea who we were meeting!  Just knew it was a guy named Mike from Jay's office.  I knew we were at the right point when the park police advised me that it was the ONLY entrance for tour groups.  Turns out, Mike just had a small group that included us and three other people from Jay's office.  It was great.  We were told by the WH staff prior to the visit that we could not bring cameras, handbags, backpacks or anything of the sort.  They advised no jeans and to dress in "appropriate white house attire".  Yikes.  It was a bit intimidating for sure and I didn't sleep well the night before because I was worried we were going to miss our tour time.  They said we could bring cell phones, but none of us did, and car keys were allowed.  We caught the metro train into DC with nothing but our IDs and some cash, which my brother kindly carried for us.  Eventually, Nik and I would add metro tickets, lipstick, gum and car keys to his pockets.  It was fun to breeze right through security points, but watch my brother get stuck emptying out every pocket.  He is SUCH a good sport.  We entered the WH through the ground floor corridor on the East Wing and were allowed to peek into roped off rooms such as the Library, the Vermeil Room and the China Room.  We moved up one floor which is actually considered the first floor, and walked through the East Room (the largest room in the WH), the Green Room, the Blue Room, the Red Room and the State Dining Room. What amazed me about the colored rooms is that yes, in fact they are all the actual colors that they are named and the walls are not covered in paint, they are covered in fabric.  It is really lovely.  One of my favorite things to see was a painting of George Washington that hangs in the East Room.  It is actually the only surviving piece from the original white house back in 1800, before the British burned it down.  Dolly Madison took it out of its frame, rolled it up and saved it from being burned.  Her picture is right next to GW's in the same room and again in the Green Room where it is strategically placed so that it is facing the painting of GW in the next room.  We learned some pretty cool historical facts and Mike, our tour guide, was very knowledgeable and informative.  We headed out of the main entrance to the white house, first passing through the cross halls where painted portraits of the most recent presidents are hanging.  Bill Clinton's is actually in place currently because apparently the photo of George W. Bush was not a good likeness of him and they are re-doing it.  Hmmmm?  Makes you wonder if that's not a coincidence...??  When we came out of the WH, we came out in the front entrance - what is known as 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.  All this time, I thought the other side was the "front"....which now makes sense when we watched Marine One land a few weeks ago.  I thought it was odd that it was landing in the front lawn, but in reality it wasn't!  I learned so much in one day!!  The WH was amazing, but refreshing in a way to see that it wasn't as huge or extravagant and untouchable as I thought it was.  Afterall, it's the "People's House".  Of course, a joke or two could not escape my brother and me, as we talked of heading up the staircase that leads to the second floor "residential" area (it was just merely roped off, who would notice??) and just asking to use the bathroom...or ask Michelle if she had a healthy snack for us to munch on :) 

After the WH, we were starving and came across an awesome restaurant called Old Ebbitt Grill.  So good!  From there we made our way to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.  This was one of the only places Scott & Nik wanted to see while in DC.  It was crowded and the tour for the permanent exhibit was full when we got there, but all I had to do was flash my miltiary ID and they let us right in no questions asked.  I won't go into descriptions or anything like that because honestly, there are just no words.  It was hard not to have tears in my eyes through the entire exhibit.  You just have to see it for yourself.  We owe it to those people to memorialize them and never forget what they went through.   

We had some time after that, even though emotionally drained and unable to process any more information, we started walking over to the Washington Monument when we spotted a bike rental kiosk.  Just as we were about to pick our bikes, a "Pedicab" came rolling by and we thought for some reason that THAT was the better option.  O.M.Gsh.  First of all, all three of us did not fit in his "cab", my brother was hanging off the side of it, but the guy took us anyway.  He could not have weighed more than 140 lbs yet, his skinny little legs hauled us what seemed like several miles to the other side of the National Mall, weaving in and out of 4PM DC traffic, cutting people off, slowing lines of traffic behind us and mouthing off to anyone that would honk or yell anything at him.  Scott thought it was hilarious -- I was terrified!  This guy was pissing people off left and right and we PAID him to do this.  Needless to say, I was glad when we reached our destination.  We walked the Vietnam Memorial, along the Pool of Reflection (which is still under construction) and on to the WWII memorial - which were big on Scott's "to do" list.  We made our way back to the metro and we were home by 7pm.  It was a long day, but such an awesome experience and one we won't likely forget.  I wished I had my camera, but there is definitely something to be said about not having a cell phone or any other baggage with us....we were really able to focus on where we were, who we were with and what we were doing without any distractions.  It was great.