Day 5 - Museums - Pt. 2

Today's Guest Blogger is Mary Rohne.

Let’s just start with yesterday was a pretty good day; even though we started with something depressing.

We went into downtown Washington D.C. for a third or fourth time, and finally found a place to park.  It was pouring down rain all day, but we were prepared.  Mom and Ross had umbrellas, Dad and I had our hoods up, and Tim just walked in the rain invincible to the downpour.  We walked to the Holocaust Museum which had a fair amount of people waiting in line to go inside.  Our group of five was pretty lucky that day.  We didn’t have to wait long to get inside, and someone gave us extra tickets they had right there and then so we didn’t have to go back outside. 

At the beginning, before we got in the elevator, you pick out an Identification Card that shares your gender, and has the identity of a real person that lived during the Holocaust.  It was strange because my identity was a little girl, and I am the youngest in the group.  Her name was Gisella Renate Berg (Pauly).  She was born on May 1, 1933, right when Hitler was coming to power, and she lived in Colonge, Germany. 

Then once we got in the elevator, it was packed with people, enough to make someone with claustrophobia scream.  They show you a short video, and then lead you into the 1930’s and 1940’s.  Throughout this section you would walk down this hallway, and on each side were displays.  My mother would describe it as “being herded by cattle”, but my father said that that was just the experience they wanted you to feel.

Now I’m very sensitive to sad things.  If I watch a movie where a puppy is separated from its long-time owner, I will cry a bit.  I also don’t like things that aren’t fair and that don’t make sense to me.  I was walking through the displays to see what the Nazis did to come to power.  Boycotting Jewish stores, and burning books that they disagreed with or didn’t pertain to their beliefs.  All of this torcher to get to power, and have everyone believe the same things they believe, just because he got bullied a bit when he was younger by a Jewish boy just disgusts me.  It was hard to go through that whole exhibition without crying.  But it’s good information, it was interesting, and it is very important to remember those who suffered for their beliefs.  There is some light at the end of this tunnel, well for the story of Gisella that I read.

Although the Nazis ransacked her home, they left for Kenya, and she was safe there.  Then later on in her life she moved to the United States, married a fellow refugee from Germany named Kurt Pauly, and she lived a good, rest of her life.

Afterwards we walked, in the rain, to something more light-hearted.  A restaurant called District Chop House and Brewery.  The most delicious Prime Rib sandwich I’ve ever had, a tower of onion rings and fries as well.  Our waiter was wonderful, very funny.    Next we walked to another attraction.  The International Spy Museum.  I was really excited about this; I read an article about it, and all the cool James Bond stuff that was in there.  While waiting for our tickets, it showed this clip from Die Another Day, and showed the green sports car that the villain drives with the actual automobile parked right in front of the screen.

 

Then we went in the elevator on our way to get our cover to be spies.  It was dark with dimly lighted blue color, reminded me of a scene from Mission Impossible.  Then, when we got out of the elevator, we got our picture taken together then proceeded to find a cover that suited us best.

My cover was Maria Rivera.  She’s 17, and was born in Mexico, and was off to Adel, Iowa for vacation and was going to be staying there for 13 days.  We were going to be tested on this later and we needed to memorize it.  Some people took pictures; I being the goody-goody I am did not, but I had my small skill of photographic memory on my side.

We then went into spy school, that was pretty cool!  We had to pick up signals, catch other agents in disguise, and quietly  go through a duct.  Then we saw the famous Bond car the BMW 17, wow.  Next, we went through the history of spies.  It talked about ninjas, spies in the Revolutionary War, World War I and II, and it gave us information on famous stars back then who became spies. 

Then, I achieved not blowing my cover, and got important information to headquarters successfully.  After doing a little victory dance, we went through an exhibit of Bond villains for the 50^th anniversary of James Bond films.  That was fun!

Does anyone remember the infamous Bond villain Jaws?  You know the guy with the metal teeth with a weird obsession with sharks?  Well, they had built him a good sized part of the exhibit.  There were screens on either side of the room, and the view was a blue ocean with sharks swimming around.  My brother led my mother into this room and he tapped on the screen quite a bit.  Well, if you tap on the screen a lot, the shark will come at you and try to bite the glass, and the “glass” starts to break.  When that happened, my mother’s scream could be heard all the way to Iowa. 

Another highlight was another simulated “Bond” situation.  In some Bond movies, Bond finds himself hanging from a beam on a building for dear life.  It was like that, but your life and your death weren’t about to touch hands.  You had to press a button as high as you could reach, then you would hang from the beam at that height.  Then it shakes a little bit, and there’s gusts of wind coming at you.   The goal is to hang on for 1 full minute.   My adventurous  brother hangs on it as high as it can go.  Guess what he did?  He hung on for that full minute!  We cheered him on, and he got a spy wristband, it was cool.  It says “Deny Everything.”

After all that excitement, we walked to the American History museum.  We would’ve gone to the Archives building, but they were closed.  This museum was pretty cool.  The first thing I walked through was The First Lady’s exhibit.  It showed some First Lady dresses which were very pretty.  It also showed the china that each First Lady picked out.  As my mom and I observed we asked ourselves, what happens when a woman becomes president?  My favorite part of the museum was seeing Harry Potter’s(Daniel Radcliffe’s) 2^nd or 3^rd year Gryffindor robe in a glass case.

When the long day ended we went to Chicago Uno bar and grill for some delicious pizza, and mega sized cookie and ice cream desert.  I could’ve died, but somehow I survived!  It was another wonderful day in D.C.  It’s sad to see it come to a close, but this vacation is not over yet!  Sunday we’ll be on our way to our next destination.  WOOHOO!!