Today nothing had been arranged except the visit to the White House West Wing for the early evening. Maggi and I decided to go out in the late morning to see one of the numerous art galleries/exhibitions in Washington. We chose the Hirshorn, a part of the whole Smithsonian institutions of Washington, and we decided to walk there from Georgetown.
The decision to walk, in hindsight, we regretted/ The journey took almost 2 hours. we walked around an exhibition entitled 1860-1960, based on the Hirshorn’s family collection which they donated to the nation. The circular gallery appears to be built almost on stilts. You enter via one specific entrance and exit via a different gate. in order to see any artworks you need to go to the 2nd floor. The curator has grouped many of the paintings and placed the descriptions also in a group. I spent much of the time deciding which painting, belonged to which artist.
Here are some examples of the artworks on display
Having spent our time in the gallery we took an Uber to Safeway in Georgetown to buy a few necessities for supper. We walked back down hill to the BnB just in time to watch Arsenal play in the Champions League Quarter final first leg against Bayern Munich. All started well with Sara scoring after 12 minutes, but 2 silly mistakes in the first half meant the gunners went in 2-1 down despite being the better team. In the second half they pressed but could only manage to gain one goal back and so the game ended in a 2-2 draw. All to play for in the second leg in Munich.
We had our supper of spaghetti with pesto and a salad and then set off for the White House to meet our guide which Alex had set up through her connection with Bill. We arrived in plenty of time and walked around to the back of the building.
Our guide helped us through 2 sets of security where we handed our passports over to the security officials. When we entered the first door of the West Wing we had to place our phones ion a locker so we couldn’t take any pictures during the tour. The photos we had were all taken by our guide in set places.
The route included 5 key areas, The Rose Garden, The Cabinet Room, The Oval Office, the reception area and the press room. My first impression was “how small”. For the most powerful man in the world the area of operation seemed very tightly packed together. The Oval Office had a small desk presented by Queen Victoria and the room didn’t ooze power. The cabinet office was being set sup for the visit of the Japanese Prime Minister the next day with the President having a chair slightly bigger than everyone else. The table probably sat 20 people but with very little extra room. The reception area where you might wait before you met the President is smaller than you would expect for the CEO of a listed company.
The press area where photos were permitted by our guide appeared smaller than they appeared on TV. The seats for the journalists all in rows with the names of the news media associated with every seat. The BBC were in the back row.
From here we walked outside and had more photos at the official entrance to the West Wing.
The whole tour lasted less than 1 hour but was very enjoyable. We returned home and packed for our departure the next day.