August 6 & 7

Yes, it was my last weekend in DC. I still had quite a few things to do on my 'To Do' list so I tried to get some of them done. On Saturday, I drove around areas of Maryland because my time there has been pretty limited since I got here. I've mostly focused on checking out areas of Virginia, just because it's closer to where I'm staying. So I tried to drive around parts of Maryland, visiting Bethesda, Rockville, and College Park primarily. I also fit in some back-to-school shopping. On Sunday, I hit some more museums: the National Postal Museum, the National Gallery of Art, the National Archives and the National Museum of American History.

I really enjoyed the Postal Museum. It's not very big and wasn't very crowded (although, honestly, the whole mall/downtown area was not very crowded at all on Sunday, for some reason) but it had some very interesting exhibits about the history of the US postal system.

Here's an old postal truck on display at the Postal Museum:


The National Gallery of Art is amazing and has an unbelievable amount of artwork on display. It's nearly impossible to see everything in a few hours, but I'm not much of an art museum fan so I was fine. I'm more interested in cultural/societal museums than just regular art museums. Like, show me how artwork in a society fits in with general life in that era. Just seeing collections of art kind of bores me. Artifacts over artwork, I guess. Regardless, they have a very large collection, particularly of Degas statues. That's one thing that really stood out to me.

A Roy Lichtenstein piece at the National Gallery:


The National Archives was really interesting, too. It sort of is just an advertisement for the documents they have, but it's pretty fascinating, especially since I'm someone who has really looked into getting a job there. They have the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and other types of original documents like that on display, but I found the general exhibits interesting too.

The front of the Archives building:


At the National Museum of American History, I really wanted to spend more time at the First Ladies exhibit because I was really fascinated by it the first time I went there but the museum was such a madhouse that it was hard to read everything.

So, anyway, pretty much the only museum I haven't gotten a chance to go to yet is the Holocaust Museum, which I hope to do Tuesday or Thursday as it is open late those two days.