Thursday 13^th December

This morning we again caught our trusty Metro to the centre of Washington DC.  This service is so clean, efficient and quick.  The passengers are polite and will queue to get on the train and exit up the escalators.  There is absolutely NO graffiti anywhere on the trains, there is carpet on the floor and the seats are all in perfect condition.  Needless to say the stations are not conducive to loitering at all.  There are burley Afro-American station staff who tolerate no nonsense at all.  There are no public toilets within the station, nor are there any vendors of any description.  It is simply a vehicle to move people from A to B…..full stop.

Our first visit was to a beautiful building which is home to The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), founded in 1890. It is a non-profit, non-political volunteer women's service organization dedicated to promoting patriotism, preserving American history, and securing America's future through better education for children.

DAR members volunteer more than 250,000 hours annually to veteran patients, award thousands of dollars in scholarships and financial aid each year to students, and support schools for underserved children with annual donations exceeding one million dollars.

As one of the most inclusive genealogical societies in the country, DAR boasts 170,000 members in 3,000 chapters across the United States and internationally. Any woman 18 years or older-regardless of race, religion, or ethnic background-who can prove lineal descent from a patriot of the American Revolution, is eligible for membership.

The DAR encompasses an entire city block and houses one of the nation's premier genealogical libraries, one of the foremost collections of pre-industrial American decorative arts, Washington's largest concert hall, and an extensive collection of early American manuscripts and imprints.

The guide (they are called “docents” here) took us on a tour of about 10 rooms which had been set up in Christmas themes.  The building has a room set up in the fashion of each American state, so were we content to see the ones on the tour as well as an exhibition in the museum highlighting the garments American women wore during the latter part of the 19^th and early 20^th centuries.

No matter which exhibition or museum we enter here in Washington we are never disappointed as we find the accompanying script to be very readable and succinct.

Following on from this museum we headed to the American History Museum where I wanted to see both Julia Child’s kitchen as well as a new exhibition on the history of food in USA since about 1960. 

The displays showed the evolution of fast food as well as the influences other countries have had on the American diet.  On our previous visit I enjoyed the kitchen of Julia Childs and was happy to look it over again.  The movie “Julie and Julia” was made a few years back and centered around a young woman wanting to cook all the recipes from Julia Child’s French cookbook.  In fact it is here in the kitchen of our home exchange partner!!

The final place on today’s agenda was the Thomas Jefferson memorial.  It was a bit of a walk to get there and the afternoon was passing by, however the photos of the building against the water with the sun lower in the sky were very satisfying.

The memorial itself is quite outstanding, grand and austere at the same time.  Jefferson was the third President of the United States and is credited with writing the Declaration of Independence. 

Again there were quite a few interpretive boards to educate us and coupled with the park ranger’s spiel we left armed with little more knowledge than previously.  The ranger’s duties here are more educative compared to those in Australia and they are responsible for all the national buildings and parks in the USA.