A Wild Adventure in Knowledge at The Smithsonian

(Honestly not sure about the title here, but we're going to go with it.) 

My last post on my adventures in the US was a brief, quasi-poetic reflection on my Pride experience in DC. This time I'm going to try to keep things mostly factual and keep the flowery language in a draft document, mostly because I keep imagining my sister standing over my shoulder complaining about how museums actually aren't exciting enough to warrant getting exciting about. (I would highly disagree because museums are the second best places in the entire world, behind libraries. (Although, even better, a library in a museum?))

I wasn't aware that The Smithsonian was more than one museum. It's actually 19 museums, and I was fortunately enough to visit the Museum of Natural History, The National Gallery of Art, and the National Air and Space Museum. It was a bit of a strange experience because I'm usually dragging my siblings along and apologising the entire time, but this time I was with Liz who actually enjoys spending time in nerdy places. I tried apologising for my interest, but she just looked at me weird because she was just as happy to be there as I was. So, moral of the story, take your nerdy friends with you to museums. 

The Museum of Natural History was probably my favourite. It was freaking amazing. The amount of science and discovery and striving towards knowledge contained in one building was almost overwhelming. I could have spent all day in there, reading over every piece of information, but in the end there was far too much to see in the time available to us. (I had a quick look at the Hope Diamond but I didn't find it that impressive. It was just a big rock.) One of my favourite parts was the infectious disease exhibit. I have a particular interest in pandemics, how they start, how they spread, and how they're treated, and the exhibit covered most of the major plagues to, well, plague humanity. 10/10 would recommend learning about diseases that you never want to get.

The first exhibit to greet us was Henry the elephant, who was donated to the museum in 1956 and had recently been repaired and patched up. 

This dude was part of the infectious diseases exhibit. He died in 1929 from tuberculosis and influenza, and scientists were analysing the plaque on his teeth to discover more about his health at the time of his death.

This book was on loan from a private collector. It was easily 2 by 1m (which is ENORMOUS) and often in books like this each page is individually bound, and each picture was painted by hand.

Next was the National Gallery of Art. I am, admittedly, a very stupid art person. I like looking at pretty things but I also know absolutely nothing. Abby knows 100% more than I do, so for the most part she led me and Liz around the gallery and showed us her favourite pieces. I feel like I'm never able to spend enough time in art museums (see previous point about complaining siblings) and one of these days I need to spend a few hours sitting and enjoying all the beautiful things. 

How on earth did I see an actual Van Gogh? He's one of my favourite artists and I'm so forever grateful to have seen some of his work.

I didn't know much about Monet but after seeing his work I have to say that I really love it. He's like Van Gogh, but without the underlying anxiety.

This is the only da Vinci in the US. I can't say I think it's a great picture to look at, but, well, art. 

And finally we went to the National Air and Space Museum. I may have nerded out a bit. I just get really excited about air and space travel, okay? I love the science and engineering behind the vehicles, and the stories of the pilots themselves has always been so inspiring to me. Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart, Neil Armstrong, the Wright Brothers. (Wow, way to go Victoria, naming all the obvious ones.) A lot of the models were replicas as some of the vehicles (the Voyagers, Curiosity, ect.) are currently off-planet (or out of the solar system, in the case of the Voyagers) but it was interesting non-the-less. We spent way too much time in the early flight exhibit, mostly because I have a thing for gliders and ornithopters and things that crash. 

Um cannot believe this is the actual Spirit of St. Louis, HOW DID I SEE THIS BEAUTIFUL MACHINE IN REAL LIFE?

Dude, small scale gliders are beautiful things.

The Lockheed 5B Vega. Amelia Earhart bought it in 1930 and flew it alone and non-stop across the Atlantic. Excuse me while I swoon.

That's about it for the museums this trip, I hope you enjoyed that little glimpse as much as I did. Learning is so darn cool. Keep learning, my friends.