Ten Things to do and see in Washington D.C.
During April vacation this year my family, and I took a trip down to Washington D.C. We saw many museums, monuments, and memorials. This is a list of some of the places we got to visit in D.C. Enjoy!
1. The Holocaust Museum
Although you need tickets to attend the museum, it was most definitely one of my favorites. On Wednesday my family and I all went to this museum. When we entered the building, we immediately jumped into the long line that was quickly forming. Once we got to the front of the line, we had to grab identification cards. In the inside of the cards was a person who lived during the Holocaust and their story. The person that I got was someone who faked her identity and moved to England. Thankfully she survived. The purpose of these cards was to let people get a glimpse into the lives of someone who lived during the Holocaust. In each section of the museum you would flip to the next page of your passport. Each page would have to do with each section of the museum. The very top floor was about Hitler becoming Germany’s leader.
When I first exited the elevator on the fourth floor, I was kind of nervous. I didn’t know what I was going to see, and I did not want to see any people getting hurt. Thankfully I didn’t. On the third floor, there are pictures and words all about the concentration camps. After going through the floor and looking at the pictures and seeing what happened to all these people, it really left a effect on me. And got me thinking. Why would someone do this? Before this part there was a long corridor. To the left and the right of the long hallway was people’s shoes. The shoes were from people that went into the gas chambers or died before. The shoes were completely gray and dusty due to the fact that they had been there awhile. To see something that actually belonged to these people was incredible. One other thing that really stood out to me was the train. There was a train there that used to bring the people to the gas chambers. You could walk through the train. I decided not to because just looking at it made me feel uneasy. Afterwards, my dad asked if it was actually real, and the people who worked there said they were 96.6 percent sure that the train was real. Walking through this museum was an amazing experience, and if you are ever in D.C. take a trip to this museum.
2. The Lincoln Memorial
On one of the days we visited Washington D.C., we took a look at a lot of the monuments and memorials. One of the ones we visited was the Lincoln Memorial. We got to see it in the daylight, while my cousins got to see it at night. The Lincoln Memorial holds a huge statue of Abraham Lincoln. My cousins, Zack and Matt, said that it was way better to see at night because the statue was all lit up.
3. The American Indian Museum
My friend, Will (from my tennis lessons), loved this museum. He said that this was his favorite, and he went into the museum twice. Just because it was so good. He also went to Washington D.C. during April vacation. When I went to the American Indian museum, I also thought it was interesting. Close to the front entrance of the building is a bunch of mini waterfalls. It looks really cool, but the inside is just as neat! The first part of the museum we looked through was a long corridor. If you looked up at the ceiling, it looked like the night sky. To the left and the right of the passage was different rooms. The rooms we went into held things about the American Indians’ clothing, day of the dead, and what they worshiped. The most interesting thing I saw there was a pin cushion. Yes, a pin cushion. Keep this in mind, it was made by the American Indians before 1942. The fascinating thing about it was that it was in the shape of the Star of David. The Star of David is a Jewish holy symbol. On top of the Star of David shaped pin cushion was a swastika. The swastika was the nazi symbol. On a trustworthy website the author says: “Though it is not known for exactly how long, Native Americans also have long used the symbol.” When we were looking at the pin cushion, my cousin, Matt, said that long ago the symbol meant peace. That was the most bizarre thing I have ever seen.
4. The American History Museum
After visiting most of the monuments and memorials, my family and I took a quick look inside this museum. My favorite thing in the museum was Dorothy’s ruby red slippers from the movie, The Wizard of Oz. We also got to see in the American History part, Muhammad Ali’s boxing gloves, Apolo Ohno’s skates from the 2002 Winter Olympics, and a signed baseball from the 1937 All - Star game. After we took a look through that section, we went into a section about Americans at war. The section started off when the Colonists started to get angry with the red coats and King George the Third, and it goes on all the way to what happened in Iraq. We also visited the first ladies section. It had most of the first ladies’ dresses. When we were finished with that section, we left the museum.
Click on a photo below to see what it is!
5. The Air and Space Museum
This was the first museum we visited in Washington D.C. There was so much information and different sections that we spent two hours there. Right when we walked in we saw a bunch of planes. They were all hanging above us. My favorite part of the museum was the World War II section. When you walked into the room, your eyes immediately saw all the planes. These planes were all planes that were actually used during World War II. They even had ones on display from Japan and Germany. I also enjoyed this museum because of all the hands on activities. For example, they had two telescopes next to each other. One was a replica of Galileo's telescope, and the other one was a modern day telescope. It was really fun pointing out the differences. There was also simulators. My cousins and my brother did these. While they were doing this, I was looking at the World War II planes. My brother, Calvin, said that the simulator was really fun. He also said that it went upside down and shook you. While they were enjoying the simulators, my mom and Aunt did a virtual reality thing. They said it was really interesting and it felt like you were actually walking on the moon. This museum was really amusing and entertaining. In my opinion this was a great way to start off the first day in D.C.
6. The Natural History Museum
This museum was my cousin’s favorite. I enjoyed some of it, but altogether it was not my favorite. This museum had sections about mummies, gems, the ocean, bugs, butterflies, mammals, what people looked like a long time ago, and dinosaur skeletons.
I enjoyed looking at the gems. My cousins and my brother liked the section with all of the animals, and the part with what people used to look like because there was a camera that would take your picture and mess with your face to make you look like what people looked like back then. It was really creepy in my opinion. Out of this whole museum my favorite thing was the section about mummies. This section had three real mummies. Two were adults and one was a little boy. They also had a mummified cat and a mummified alligator. It looked really interesting and it definitely caught my attention. Overall this museum was very crowded and after a while it did get a little bit boring, but it was my cousin’s favorite museum.
7. Arlington Cemetery
Arlington Cemetery is where a lot of soldiers are buried. To be buried at Arlington you need to have served in the army for a certain amount of years or died in battle (there is also a bunch of other things, but I can’t remember them all). When I saw all of the graves, I was amazed of how many people that had served our country. Some of the graves even dated back to the Civil War. Two amazing things that we saw in my opinion was the changing of the guards and one grave in particular. The grave was a huge crypt that had writing on it. It said that it held 2,111 body parts and remains of soldiers from the Civil War. They were gathered from the battles of Bull Run and Rappahannock. It was crazy to see something like that.
8. The U.S. Capitol
My family, aunt, uncle, cousins, and I got to take the tour on a Wednesday. Before the trip, my dad contacted Susan Collins. Susan Collins is one of the senators from our state. The senator emailed my dad back and said that we could take a tour on Wednesday. She also said that she was not going to be able to give us the tour herself but her secretary would. So that Wednesday we arrived at Susan Collin’s office. Her two secretaries greeted us kindly. Then one of her secretaries named Elsa, started the tour. She showed us down a long hallway. The walls were all bricks. Once we got to the end, we all hopped on a small looking train. There was no roof, there was metal benches, and there was no seat belts. Once we were all seated, a person switched a lever and we took off. It took us like 30 seconds to get to the other side, and it was incredibly fast. When it stopped, we all got off and walked into a huge room. On each side there was statues of people in history. Some of the statues were Helen Keller and Harriet Tubman. Out of all the statues the only one anyone could touch was the one of Helen Keller. The reason for this is because it had brail on the side. After looking at the states, Elsa then led us around the capital. The ceilings of most of the rooms were painted beautifully. In one of the rooms if you looked up you could see a picture of George Washington with a bunch of angels. In the same room around the area there was a bunch of 2-D paintings. In one of the areas, Elsa told us that the painter was painting and all of a sudden he slipped and fell. He ended up okay, but he decided he was done with painting the area. Also in one room in particular there was more statues, but this time they were all of presidents. My two favorite parts of being in the capital was when Elsa told us the weird facts about the building. For example, when we were waiting to pass Elsa showed us a pillar there that had strange circles that looked like they were burned into the stone. She told us that they appeared there because of everyone was touching it and their oils in their fingers were creating the holes. We also found out another cool fact that caught my attention. Elsa had us all crouch down and look at a small piece of the floor. We all knelt down, and Elsa told us to tell her what we saw. At first I saw nothing until she told me that there was footprints. I looked harder and I could see them. They were paw prints from a cat. Elsa told us when people were first working on the floors of the building cats were allowed in. Sure enough the cats walked right on the floors that were under construction at the time and they left paw prints! I also learned that on the Ronald Reagan statue there are pieces from the Berlin Wall. The people who worked there had to surround the statue with rope because people were trying to take some pieces of the Berlin wall off of the statue. Even though that was really interesting, the coolest thing I saw was the New England Patriots!! When we got back into the room with all the statues of presidents, the security had put up ropes. Elsa told us that she wondered why they had done that. We went up to the ropes to look and all of the sudden we saw the football team! It was super cool.
9. The World War II memorial
This was really interesting to see because my Great Uncle served in World War II. When we first saw the memorial, we walked over to the Atlantic side. This memorial had a waterfall in the middle of it, and it had two sides. The Atlantic side and the Pacific side. The memorial also has pillars that stand upright with the names of each state. Towards the back of the memorial there was a long wall covered with gold stars. It is called the Freedom Wall. There are 4,048 gold stars. Each of the stars represent a person who died or remained missing in the war.
10. The Washington Monument
You can go inside the Washington Monument, but the day my family and I went no one was allowed in. The Monument is very tall and big. It stands at 555 feet tall and 5 ⅛ inches tall. The base of it is 55 feet wide. There is even over 36,000 stones. The monument is also surrounded by American flags, and it is really cool to go right up to it and look straight up.
Visiting D.C. was very fun, and I learned a lot about the things that I visited. I highly recommend Washington D.C. for a trip. Taking a vacation there would be fun for anyone!
