Washington DC in May (2011): The Mall

Last May (2011) Amy and I visited Washington DC.  We had intended to visit several embassies as part of Passport DC, but I got distracted once we saw the Mall.  I hadn't been to DC since the mid 90s.  And so we didn't end up going near an embassy all day.

The program involves several DC embassies opening their doors so that you can experience the cultures of their home nation.  It is a really interesting concept, and we do want to go back and see it at some point.  This year (2012) appears to be the fifth year of the program:

Travel the world without leaving the city during Cultural Tourism DC’s month-long celebration of international culture with two popular embassy open houses.

I was searching through old pictures recently and realized that I hadn't blogged about going to DC at all.  I must have posted some on Facebook (so I may reference my Timeline when typing these posts), but as I recall this blog was quite neglected while I was dating my future wife.  I've been enjoying posting travel blogs, so I thought that I could put some of them on-line retroactively.  I plan to extensively blog future trips, but there is no reason that I can't do ones in the past also.  Who knows, there might be a couple readers out there actually interested in reading this, ;-)--and if not then I'm sure I'll enjoy re-reading these posts later.  So without further ado I give you part one of our rapid tour through DC, the National Mall.

Doesn't that picture look exciting?  It was the first picture I took on the Mall.  Of course I did take a couple others earlier, of the subway station.

 There is quite a bit to see on the Mall.  One reason that we did stay there is that we weren't sure what would happen with the weather.  As you can see the day was quite cloudy and looked like it could rain at any moment.  At first we thought we'd just walk up the Mall a bit, look around, and then head to an embassy to begin.  The looking around never ended.  By the end of the day we'd seen all the memorials on the Mall as well as several Smithsonian museums and the Library of Congress.

This was my first glimpse of the Washington Monument (outside of movies) in quite a while.  I'd definitely like to go up it.  I don't remember if I went to the top when I visited DC with my parents, but even if I did I want to go up again.  Sadly though for those on a spur-of-the-moment trip you have to get tickets well in advance (or line up early in the morning).

By the time we got close to the Monument there were already plenty of people there.

And of course I couldn't resist taking pictures of the signs!  Free tickets are passed out starting at 8:30, and it was after 9:30 by the time I took these pictures.  But next time we'll try to plan ahead (try being the operative word ;-)).  Of course according to the Mall's website (which is hopefully up to date) the Washington Monument is still closed after last August's earthquake.

We also visited several war memorials (including the World War II memorial), but I'll save those for another post.

There are some beautiful trees lining the Mall in several spots.  If you take just the right picture you might even think you're off in the woods somewhere.  It would be a nice place to enjoy a picnic lunch (as I'm sure plenty of visitors have done).

The reflecting pool was closed, so I didn't get any dramatic shots, but I did capture a few in-progress construction shots.  I'm happy that the one including the chain-link fence turned out rather well.  I think you can see the extent of the work and the fence is a rather large clue about what is going on.  Closer to the other end you could see some heavy equipment being utilized.

All was not lost however, as I did manage to get several reflecting shots using pools that we found along the Mall.  It was a nice day for photography as I didn't have to worry about too much sunlight reflecting from the water or otherwise spoiling the shots.

The last shot I'll leave you with was of a bird that we saw not too far from shore.  I do really enjoy the zoom lens on my camera--it isn't telephoto, but 35x is pretty nice if you can't get too close.

Update: You can see the whole album of DC pictures in the following slideshow:

~Matt