Elle Loughran: Visit to DC

(I wrote this over a long time, largely on the bus to the airport to leave DC. It's just a chronological recap of the weekend. Be warned: I complain in it and don’t make an effort to be interesting. Let’s say it’s the heat exhaustion talking.)

Saturday morning

Awake dark and very early at 4.08 am to get a 4.30 taxi to the airport for my 6.10 flight.

I can’t generalise because this is the only internal-American flight I’ve taken, but wow United Airlines are utter crap – I wasn’t allowed to check in online because I had a ‘Basic Economy’ fare and wasn’t checking bags. Apparently this marked me as a threat, but I mean, I was only staying one night – why would I need more than my schoolbag?

I tried to check in on a machine in the airport but the Poors Klaxon (well, the Basic Economy flashing lights) went off so an employee had to come confirm I was ok. Never mind that Basic Economy is a category they’ve invented to reduce service on a flight that cost nearly $200 – Ryanair treats you better than that for a tenner.

Aaanyway, after I got through the long security line I didn’t have a long wait for the flight. I went to the shop to get an iPad charger because I cleverly forgot the charger for my navigation, communication and photo-taking device, and the cashier asked me if I’d like to ‘support the troops’ with my purchase. I was just like ... no thanks. They did pre-boarding first, which I didn’t go up for because of the aforementioned Basic Economy fare, then suddenly it was the Final Call.

The plane was fine although tiny – only 12 rows with four seats in each. Not really any more cramped than the flight from Dublin, and a lot shorter (1 h 25 mins).

In DC

I got off the plane and stepped into a wall of heat. I’d been warned about it, but it was actually quite nice to get off the frigid plane into. Then I got the 5A for ~45 minutes to DC proper, which, thankfully, is apparently only a few square miles in area.

NASA Festival

I actually got really lucky – I walked towards the National Mall and walked right into the last day of a big NASA festival celebrating 20 July 50 years ago when the Moon landing happened. It was really cool, NASA are very good at science communication (apart from when they asked me if I know what exoplanets are and I was like ... I do have most of a science degree) and PR, and I was pleased to discover while talking to the stall staff (all actual NASA employees) that THE MARTIAN, the book that got me interested in space exploration again, is considered very accurate apart from the storm at the start and people at NASA love it. So I’m impressed I enjoyed the NASA event so much despite my concern about climate change and feeling that NASA should be joining forces with NOAA and devoting as many of their people as possible to dealing with that instead of building expensive spacefaring devices.

When I said I was a geneticist, the guy I was talking to said to please figure out a solution to radiation in space, like splice cockroach DNA into humans or something - it’s fine on the ISS apparently because of the magnetic field but not in deep space. Talking to him was really cool – talking in a problem-solving way.

National Art Gallery – the Classical part

I won’t lie, I really appreciated that this building has A/C, especially after climbing the many steps to get in. They also let you sit down on sofas in a room near the entrance, which was handy. They made me wear my schoolbag on one shoulder, which apparently protects the art, though I can’t see how, and it’s certainly not good for my back.

For some reason, the only art I could find was Dutch and Flemish. I swear these places are like mazes.

The Capitol

Next stop: Congress. It’s a really nice building, with sprinklers around the place that I walked right into so as not to die from the ~37 C heat. I did kinda hope I might bump into AOC but alas, no luck. Rudely, Congresspeople don’t seem to hang around for my Saturday tourism.

With how hot it was, I definitely wanted to get into this lake. I satisfied myself with walking through the sprinklers.

I lay under this tree and thought about that Washington bit in Hamilton where he talks about giving up power and lying under the shade of your own tree

Have I mentioned yet that I love how flower-filled America is?

I attempted to go to the National Botanic Gardens but when I got to the entrance and it said go around the other side ... look, it was hot out. Also skipped the Library of Congress and White House but I shall survive.

The Smithsonian Air and Space Museum

There was a very long line to get in, probably because of the NASA event and the 50-year anniversary (the Smithsonian was holding a party for it that night), and I was dying standing there (have I mentioned it was hot yet?).

I swear my face is like a weather warning in itself.

So I was glad when a conversation started between me and the girl behind me, who’s from North Carolina and doing an internship in DC. Amazingly, our conversation continued the whole way and we ended up spending my whole time in the museum together! We met up with her friend at the restaurant and had a fascinating conversation about Native Americans, Irishness, and autistic and deaf culture. Her friend uses sign language (simcomming) while she speaks, which was awesome! And she’s Cherokee-Irish, which I didn’t even know was a thing and was fascinating to talk about. She talked about extra school they go to learn their heritage and culture and I realised summers in the Gaeltacht are that for us!

Sadly, most of the museum was locked away because of construction.

I also noticed for the first time the International in the ISS’s name. I think the idea was in my head that the US and Russians are still fighting over space, so that was nice.

The Air and Space museum held an event that night to celebrate the 50-year anniversary and I feel bad for not going to it, but I did not want to be out in an unknown city at 2 am so I just went to the hostel around 6 pm.

The Hostel
It was my first time in a hostel alone (so not on a school trip) and I wasn't expecting luxury but damn it was very minimal for something that cost $73. Maybe my hostel-cost meter just isn't calibrated. They also opened my door in the morning telling me to check out when it was more than an hour before check-out time, which made me uncomfortable. There was one very nice thing about it: they have two locations and when I accidentally went to the wrong one, the guy working there walked me over the 10 minutes to the other one! He's my age and studying computer science. Also, it was very close to the city centre - maybe 7 minutes on the metro with 20 or so minutes of walking. Not that walking was particularly easy considering it was 37 C and DC was the hottest place in the country when I visited!

I had a frustrating experience trying to order food. I'd barely eaten all day so I was bloody starving. I tried to order from DoorDash or something but I couldn't because my debit card didn't have a zip code(????????), then I tried somewhere else and the system wouldn't let me order a sandwich plus fries so I just got large fries eventually which tided me over. My rumbling belly and I watched that delivery tracker like a hawk.

Sunday
My goal for Sunday was just to go to the Natural History Museum and maybe the Native American museum. I couldn't find the NHM for a while and it was too damn hot to not be somewhere with AC so I went to the National Gallery's modern art section. It had some nice pieces but some that really just made me think ... how the hell did this get in here? Truly some utter crap, overly proud of itself for ~redefining the rules of the genre~ by putting in zero effort and delegating the job to their three-year-old. Also, just one of the paintings I came across wasn't allowed to be photographed, and I have no idea why that one. Is that inconsistency meant to be art in itself? Who bloody knows.

Who knew you could just delegate art to your toddler and get it put in the National Gallery?

It's a bedsheet. But because it's not rectangular it is apparently daring and exciting. If they were going to make me banjax my back by carrying my bag on one shoulder they could have at least had better art (okay okay I put my bag in the cloakroom to avoid that shh).

Have some nicer art as a palate cleanser - I found out I really liked Georgia O Keeffe:

And this was okay I guess, so I'm not shitting on all abstract art:

After a while of that I found the NHM and after queuing and going through the security scanners (every museum had these, sigh) I was in. Unfortunately, I forgot it closed at 5.30 pm so I didn't go around fast enough, but I did see some nice things.

This elephant is actual size and I couldn't get over how big that is.