Union Station is quite a building
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Washington has been a total surprise.
While the lovely weather has no doubt helped - it’s without doubt one of the nicest cities I’ve ever visited.
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And Smithson was British and never visited the US but bequeathed his large estate to get the museum business going there. (Perhaps the fact that we’d burned the Capitol including the Library of Congress, the White House and most of the other public buildings pretty much to the ground a few decades earlier weighed on his conscience ?)
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I’m sure The Proud Boys will do likewise if Trump fails to win in a fortnights time.
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Receiving a huge shipment of light fittings. This is part of the removal of the last vestiges of the 90s from the house.
Upon opening the boxes it has become clear that there’s so much of it because they’ve shipped double amounts of everything, except a single lightbulb 
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The mix of Smithsonian museums and Federal buildings in and around the National Mall is quite astonishing tbh - quite a legacy and guilty conscience 
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The Genocide National Museum of the American Indian is a very interesting one to visit even if it does somewhat skirt around the issue of what actually happened to the amazing & diverse cultures on display & that once proliferated across the land there.
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It is an eye opener. It doesn’t even cover the basics that that well. Hunter gatherers have never fared well against those who build a civilisation based on settling and farming. Missed opportunity to educate rather than entertain,. The latter is, unfortunately, what many museums do these days, to the detriment of the former.,
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A good collection in their National Gallery of Art as well including iirc the only Leonardo da Vinci painting in the US.
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Their modern art collection (next building along The Mall ?) used to have a huge Jackson Pollock drippy abstract hanging in the foyer. When I last visited (one of quite a few work trips, maybe 25 years ago ?) it was worth joining the guided tour just for the fun the guides had with it.
Most of the tourists were provincial Americans ‘doing DC’. The guide would assemble them in front of the pic and ask what they thought it was worth. Someone would eventually lose his composure and shout “Nothing ! In fact you’d have to pay me to take it away ! My toddler could have done that and, in fact, has more than once !”. Then the guide would say “Well, we paid xx million dollars for it” with the implication that somehow taxpayers’ money might have been involved (actually I’m not sure it was, but never mind). You could almost hear the rising blood pressure 
.
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They do a good line in museums. I didnt think I’d enjoy the Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma, but, it was brilliant. A superb collection and very tasteful. Which surprised me.
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My favourite guide story was in the 80s on HMS Victory.
Still being a Royal Navy ship it was a rating that was the tourist guide.
“Nelson’s famous naval victories were Copenhagen, Ushant, Nile and Trafalgar. There is an easy way to remember that.
Now over here we have …”
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This man helped me kick my daily Bob Ross YouTube Habit - Dr. Irving Finkel of the British Museum is: Intensely Passionate & insightful combined with an eccentric flair and humor to match. I’m completely addicted to his curator corner on the British museums YT channel (Which is actually excellent).
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A last minute decision to visit Arlington today so didn’t spend too long there. Probably a good thing as it is a very sobering place - as it should be.
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Also seen our first maga mutants in the wild today which is not bad going after five days here.
Not sure what ones we’ll do yet apart from the Library Of Congress tomorrow.
13 posts were split to a new topic: Weight loss jabs
I’m not sure about the order, it will depend on how fast we move this morning, but today it’s MADE London
https://madelondon-angel.co.uk/
where several of the wife’s funky jewellery pushers will be in attendance. And Baudry Greene
which kind of defies description. Not a three-course-meal kind of place, more somewhere to graze with a cocktail or a glass of wine.
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WTF with Pic 4 ? Looks a whacky / interesting jaunt 
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