Andrew has been in DC all week and Laura and Lucy came to stay here. We had a great week!
We were planning to go to DC one day to meet Andrew and have dinner and decided on Wednesday. Wednesday being a Holy Day, The Feast of The Assumption of Our Lady, we decided to go to Mass at the National Shrine of The Immaculate Conception down there.
We left the house around 9:00 to get to Sliver Spring to catch the train at 11:00. We had a few minor glitches to deal with. The Silver Spring Metro station is down in town and is a real pain to get to and park in. We got lost once but finally found it and a parking garage that required QUARTERS! So Laura had to run into a bank to get them. Back up to our parking spot, feed the meter, catch the train.
By the time we got to the Basilica Mass was starting.
It was so beautiful! The Mass was a high Mass. And the Celebrant was Archbishop John Foley O.P.
He is so wonderful and the Homily was so good! The boys were perfect and love the Basilica so much that they just sat and stared at everything with huge eyes! Lots of questions afterwards.
The Mass was quite long and by the time it was over it was 1:30. The boys hadn't eaten lunch yet, so we went down to the cafeteria. We just managed to miss the huge rush and I got them food and drinks.
We didn't have much time inside the Basilica because we had to catch the train into town. We will be going back, however.
After lunch we walked back to the train station and caught the train to The Mall. The boys think the train is one of the best parts of the trip.
We were supposed to meet Andrew at 4:15 and we didn't get to the Mall until 3:00. Our plan had been to go to the Air and Space Museum, but as we were walking along we saw that it was going to take too long to walk there and we would just get there and have to turn right around.
As we were walking we came to the Hirshhorn Museum of Modern Art. We were about to go by, but the boys wanted to go over and have a look at the giant fountain. Since we were right there, we decided to check it out. I expected to meet with resistance from the boys who were expecting to go to the Air and Space. They spotted the gardens, however, and were so intrigued by what was outside that they started asking to go in!
I love Washington, there is no charge for any of the museums and we just went right in!
There isn't much on the first floor, so we took the elevator to the 2nd.
The art was just amazing! The boys were having a blast!
There are many,many sculptures of every sort. Just to show you a few...
Here is Laura's Favorite. A Rodin "Iris, messenger of the gods". Paul still remembers her three days later! He knows the title better than I do!
We were looking at this one and I asked the boys what they thought it was and Paul said "It's a torso!" By golly if it wasn't titled "Torso"!
I took this one for myself. It's a very interesting horse...
Paul's Favorite was this one...
This is called "Resurrection"
This was a hanging sculpture...
This one is called "Video Flag". It is a bunch of tvs stacked in a rectangle and turned on. The screens then show different colors in the pattern of the flag.
After we had seen everything there was to see at the museum, and after I had promised the boys that we would come back, we left to go back to the Smithsonian Castle to meet Andrew and go find an early dinner.
We had to walk across the mall so we got a few pictures of the boys in front of the monument.
The Cookes and the Capital...
The National Archives...
And I guess, Laura got us all walking up the street!
It was a wonderful day and although we were very tired, we are really looking forward to the next trip. I think we may go back next week with Tim. He is off for the week.Anytime anyone wants to come back and see this very interesting city, we would love to have you!
