Washington DC – Day 4

– Jack Faintich 

Today we near the end of our journey, and we start off our day by going to the Smithsonian national air and space museum. I personally love science. This was a slice of heaven for me. One of the things that was amazing was the timeline of plane development ending in the 1930s was a pully system to steer the plane, then moving to hydraulics. And now what we have today steering through robotics.

Next we had lunch at food trucks which was a great experience. Chicken fingers and fries are one of my go-to meals, except when it’s $18. During lunch, we got the chance to see the National American art gallery. I only saw a very small amount, but I saw many sculptures and carvings. I remember thinking not only the effort to make that but then preserving it is amazing to me. After lunch, we met with an etgar alum, Sara Karol,  who works in the Department of Justice. It was an amazing story on how she went from working at Target to working for one of the most important organizations in the USA.  She spoke about the differences between the protests during the summer of 2020 and Jan. 6th.

Afterward, We got on the bus for a quick ride to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. The museum was especially moving. We were given 3 hours to tour the museum, but in that time, we only scratched the knowledge that was offered there. One of the things I loved about the museum was the floor that contained memorabilia of famous black athletes such as Jackie Robinson and Ozzie Smith.  This really spoke to me as I love sports and saw so many iconic names who were all part of and proud to be in the black community. Towards the end of our time in the museum, the museum lit up with weather alerts for a thunderstorm warning with 80 mph winds. Fortunately, we still made it to the bus on time for dinner on the wharf. It was very beautiful and a great experience all around.

We made our way to the memorials of Washington DC the MLK memorial was a very fitting way to start the end of our journey as we started in Atlanta with seeing MLKs house the Washington monument was very beautiful although same flags were ripped from the storm earlier in the day next we went to the World War One memorial I was very upset to see how small it was but was given good news that they are planning to rebuild it next was the memorial for the Korean War after that was the Lincoln memorial the Lincoln memorial was filled with amazing views of the Washington monument and it was especially beautiful at night this is also where Dr Martin Luther King Jr. gave his iconic I have a dream speech which also fits toward the end of our journey the veitnam memorial especially spoke to me and the thought of all of these people being insulted when they returned home and the memorial for the dead behind dececrated I found horribly sad they I wrapped up the day with a very great conversation with Adam about some of his charity work.