DC: Day 3

I went back for Smithsonian museums, round two. This time, I braved the metro all by myself! I have come to the (surely unfair and biased) conclusion that people in DC like to talk to themselves, judging solely on my fellow passengers: a man sang along with his ipod at full volume, and a professor (?) grading papers (?) had an ongoing conversation with herself. Innnteresting.

First, I explored the Museum of the American Indian, which was incredible. The architecture and exhibition design was equally as impressive as the artifacts that were on display. Next, I made it over to the Hirshhorn museum, which housed a variety of sculptures and modern art. One of the artists shipped glass boxes to himself within the standard fed-ex cardboard boxes, and displayed the resulting broken glass. Unfortunately, the general public didn’t seem to recognize this as a piece of sculpture (it did honestly look like the curators accidentally forgot their packages in the middle of the floor that morning), and kept walking too close to the art, continuously setting off the security sensor. A lovely soundtrack to my perusing...At this point the sky opened up into a full-on downpour, and I was stuck in the museum a bit longer than I had planned for, as I didn’t think in the 90 degree heat that morning to pack and umbrella. At right: the most alarming sculpture: a giant disgruntled nude man (stranger included in shot for scale).

After I toured the Museum of African Art and the Freer gallery, I did a quick look-see into the Smithsonian Castle and then called it quits. After eight museums in two days, I had to admit museum burnout.