Words, Words, Words

 

There are so many world-class museums in Washington DC that it is hard to pick where to go next. There are also so many people who want to visit these museums that some of them have resorted to reservation systems. Gone are the days of being able to walk into the front door and wander around. A lot of the museums even have security check points now. I really dislike visiting places where the crowds are so thick that you have to wait in line to view some type of exhibit.

The National Portrait Gallery, while it did have a security check point was not very crowded. There were a lot of portraits of mostly old white guys but these were the guys whose names you have heard all your life. It was fun to put a face to those people who were the movers and shakers of our history.

The Four Justices
Nelson Shanks
Sandra Day O'Connor, Ruth Baden Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayer, Elena Kagan

Barack Obama
Kehinde Wiley

This was in a hallway that I caught out of the corner of my eye.  My horse friends will understand when I say that my first thought when I saw this painting was - "what?  no helmets?" I am a helmet fanatic. 

The National Postal Museum had a few interesting exhibits such as how stamps are made. I'm a sucker for automation and watching the videos where the stamps came off the machines in two mile long rolls was fascinating. USPS manufactures 57 million stamps a day. Another exhibit was called ' Behind The Badge' which was all about the US Postal Inspection Service – one of the oldest federal law enforcement agencies. They do whatever needs to be done to protect the mail. The rest of the exhibits were rather ho-hum although if you are into stamps, you will really enjoy the postal museum.

Planet Word is a voice-activated museum - the world's first.  It was so much fun.

We started off with lunch at Immigrant Food.  I love how so many of these museums have cafes/restaurants attached to them.  In this case, Michelin star Enrique Limardo  believes that immigration is the "special mix of people and cultures that make America great...again and again." He uses food to express this philosophy. 

Madam VP's Heritage Bowl
A tribute to VP Kamala Harris' Indian & Jamaican heritage. 
Coconut-curried chicken on turmeric rice & baby spinich, plantains, chickpeas, pineapples

When you walk under this tree birds start to sing and you hear multiple languages

This is the elevator

The wall of words is 20 feet tall and 40 feet wide
Different words would light up and the wall would ask you questions about the words.  There were microphones that you could answer the wall and the wall would respond depending on what you said.

Franklin School , a National Historic Landmard and the home of Planet Word
It was built in 1869, eventually became a homeless shelter before the museum took it over.