Gentleice Goes to Washington

Well, none of the planned travel journals materialised, but I WILL GET DOWN TO IT. For starters, some pics from my whirlwind trip to Washington. I spent most of the daylight hours indoors attending a workshop, so there are precious few pics that are lit by sunlight. Most of those taken in the dark were less than satisfactory, to say the least.

I only had around 4 hours to explore Washington's many sights, and I did it all on foot. I did not manage to get inside the Smithsonian museums to my regret. However, in those four hours (during which the temperature got down to something like 0 deg Celcius), I got to the main postcard highlights:

The Lincoln Memorial

This was taken at dusk (around 5 pm), with the sun almost completely set.

This is indeed a majestic and most impressive monument. However, I had the misfortune of visiting during a period when Lincoln's statue was undergoing restoration work. Scaffolding obscured most of his face and part of his mid portion. Will post those pictures at another date.



The White House

This was taken in the morning (around 7. 45 am) with strong sunlight shining straight into the camera lense. This is the view from Pennsylvania Avenue, around 3 minutes away from my hotel. The White House is naturally fenced off, and I poked my camera through the gate's grate to take this shot.

This is in fact the back part of the White House. I have a photo of the front, taken that same morning. However, the front of the house is more heavily fenced and the picture I took has two fences obscuring the view of the house.

Capitol

This is, tragically, one of the very few shots of the Capitol that turned out okay. This was taken at night, well after sunset (around 8 pm). I had trudged the whole 2 km of the National Mall to get here and my fingers were frozen by this time (not conducive to taking night photos at all).

The Capitol is perhaps the most impressive building I saw in Washington. Notwithstanding its symbolism (and opinions may well be divided on this), it is just a beautiful building. The famous dome is a marvel up close.


Washington Monument

This was taken with the setting sun behind the camera (around 4.30 pm), from the Lincoln Memorial end of town. I liked how the colour of the sky turned out. It was very cold in Washington those two days, but the sun was out and the sky was cloudless.

The Washington Monument appears to be no more than just a block of cement and many places have such monuments. But what makes it impressive is its sheer size. Like so many things in America, this was HUGE.