Nonetheless, I slept pretty well and woke up to the buzzing of my phone under my pillow at 8AM, like old times. I got up, got motivated, and planned out my day. After a quick stop downstairs to make myself a couple of peanut butter and banana sandwiches and chug a glass of orange juice, I was on my way. But, not before one of the guys who worked at the hostel said good morning and asked me to say good morning in any language other than English. Which is cute. And friendly. And cool. And shows how diverse the hostel's inhabitants are. But at 8AM when you're just trying to make a sandwich to pack in your bag for later? Needless to say it took me an embarrassing ten seconds to pull out "buenos dias."
My first destination was Starbucks, where I sat with my hazelnut soy latte and... watched last night's Private Practice... aaaand ate a brownie. I know. I know. But it happened.
Let me mention that the day started and it was a little chilly out and was drizzling, however (SPOILER ALERT!) it was amazing weather for the rest of the day. And I mean amazing. Like if I could imagine my dream weather today would've been it. The leaves are incredibly vibrant shades of gold and orange, the sun was warm, and there was a slight breeze. Heaven.
My first real destination of the day was the National Gallery of Art. Separated into two buildings, one with modern art and one with more historic art, I decided to hit up the West Building (historic) first. I took in some Dürer, Cezanne, Renoir, and Monet (amongst a million others). Some of it I loved and some of it really wasn't my cup of tea. But I found a few new artists I really hadn't followed much before but whose work really stood out to me.
One of my favorite discoveries in the West Building was Edgar Degas' sculptures. Up until this point I hadn't really encountered any sculptures that spoke to me. I preferred photographs and paintings, which is all well and good, but today Degas' sculptures of dancers really stood out. "Little Dancer Aged Fourteen" was by far my favorite.
Another piece that really struck a chord with me was Camille Pissarro's "Boulevard des Italiens, Morning, Sunlight." From 1897, this depiction of a busy city street didn't stand out to me at first. Sure, it was pretty, but it wasn't until I got closer and I looked at all the pieces of the puzzle that I was able to really appreciate it.
Some of the paintings, especially the oil on canvas, depict these beautiful scenes where so much is going on but everything comes together somehow. However, once you get closer and really attempt to analyze all that is going on in the painting, it all just looks like a bunch of splotches, a collection of little blobs of paint. You can't make sense of any of it. It's hard to remember that it looked so cohesive just moments before. So you step back again and distance yourself from the overwhelming mess. It makes sense again. You can recognize the beauty in it now. Every little blob of paint comes together and creates this beautiful picture.
I go through the rest of the museum with my iPod on shuffle, a risky little game where some songs are just magically perfect for the moment (Sufjan Stevens, Iron & Wine, The Smiths, Amos Lee) and some are just so so wrong (Dane Cook, Miley Cyrus, Girl Talk).
I break for lunch, which is where my peanut butter and banana sandwich comes into play. I sit outside in between the West Building and the East Building and eat my sammie, all the while taking in some delectable weather and hilarious people watching. Then it's time for a little walk to enjoy the weather before I hide away in another museum. This time my feet led me towards the U.S. Capital building, some statues/monuments in honor of dead presidents, and the classic view of the Washington Monument. Not bad at all.
I joked (over Twitter, natch) that this is probably the most patriotic I'm ever going to feel. I'm know amongst my friends and family as someone who doesn't get enthralled by the fourth of July, I can't stand the Olympics and I'm never one to get into the USA chants (although Anna, Vic, and Shelby make them endearing).
After my walk I headed back to the National Gallery of Art, but the East Building this time. Already I can tell that it is going to be more modern: the building itself has more characteristics of modern architecture. Much smaller than its spouse, the East Building's main attraction is currently an exhibition of Roy Lichtenstein's career. I'd seen his pop art before, but I can't say I ever knew his name. This exhibition is really fantastic though. The many directions his career took are really fascinating. There's the colorful pop art comics, the black and white pop art style, a focus on romance, a focus on war and violence, and even some work around nature in the last couple of decades. What ties them together is his use of dots to create a full picture, kind of like all the tiny pixels in a television that when you pull away from it you see it all coming together. The exhibition didn't allow photography so I've pulled a couple of my favorites off the Internet.
Another highlight of the East Building was its exhibition on news and the art of print media.
It had some standout pieces but one of my favorite parts was this quote on the wall: "you read the handbills, catalogs, posters that sing out loud and clear - that's the morning's poetry, and for the prose there are the newspapers" (Guillaume Apolinnaire, 1912).
After taking in some Picasso, O'Keefe, Miro, Matisse, and Derain (one of my old time faves), I headed back out into the world, where I decided... I should probably go to some more museums. The Smithsonian awaited!
I should probably mention that most of the big museums in D.C. are free. And let me tell you, I was glad of that when I found myself bored out of my mind at the Natural History Museum. You see, taxidermy, mummies, and bones really aren't my thing. At all. But I figured I would go so I could cross it off my list. Zzzzzzzzzzzz.
I hightailed it out of there pretty quickly and headed to the American History Museum, where I immediately felt more at home amongst fashion and popular culture. The exhibit on the first ladies? SO interesting. Their clothing, their china patterns, their shoes. I sound like such a girl but I loved it. Michelle Obama's Jason Wu gown from the inauguration was center stage and I tried not to drool. Some bitches had the audacity to smack talk the dress in my vicinity, even drawing comparisons to mummies and toilet paper, and I gave them dirty looks.
While it may seem like the exhibit was just focused on the role of fashion and home decor for first ladies, that's not all that I got out of it. These women have had an enormous impact on our country. And as I went through all of the women I took note of their ages when they became first lady: the youngest was 21 (Cleveland) and the oldest was 65 (Harrison). I hadn't thought of it before but the age of the first lady plays such an important role in the presidency. How they treat the public, how they entertain, whether they're mothers or grandmothers, have young children or grown children. That impacts their role as first lady, and therefore the state of the country in a sense. It's interesting.
The exhibit on the presidency in general is very cool too. There was a section on growing up in the white house, and a section on the portrayals of the presidency in film/television, both of which piqued my interest.
After going through the rest of the museum I realized that I was exhausted. I wandered back outside and devoured my second peanut butter and banana sandwich, and began my walk back to the hostel.
I ate a delicious salad at Sweetgreen for dinner, watched the latest episode of Parenthood, and read. I finally bought "Eating Animals," a book that's been on my list for years. It's really good so far.
Well it was a full day in D.C.'Til tomorrow!
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