Independence Day in Washington DC

It's quite cold again as I am writing this blog. People here say it's nearing peak of summer. What summer @#$%; 18 degrees now.

Anyways, let's get to the topic of this blog. Went out with a CGI Banglore guy named Srikantha.

An Intro to National Mall

The "mall" is a large public garden with walking area. As shown in the map below, almost all monuments/ building/ gardens/ musuem's lie in this area.

Since, it was the 4th of July, there were huge crowds, lots of noise due to various happenings around. Last year around 6 lakhs people had been here; no idea of this year.

It was a complete mela like in India. And the drumbeats reminded me of a Ganpati day.

Only difference was the crowd. Just have to see them know it.

Many performing bands on the street like these ones:

Capitol Hill

This is their parliament. Must have seen this in many Hollywood movies. I think our parliament looks much better than this.

Some pond near Capitol Hill:

Art Garden

Various art sculptures placed in a garden. Was least interested in it. Went inside because it had nice pond where lots of people were sitting around.

Water was quite cold bcoz it's "summer" here.

Fountain keeps changing and adjusting it's strength.

Trying a weird pose.

Just showing Srikantha the powerful zoom of my digicam They were sitting right across on the other side of pond.

I swear I never wanted to capture that almost naked bikini babe. But still somehow she got in the photo.

Jefferson Memorial

The memorials here are nothing.....not at all worth visiting. I mean compare it to the memorials we have in India - Taj Mahal, Gol Gumbaz, Raigad fort; these don't stand a chance.

Just some nice views from Jefferson memorial.

Even though it looks spacious; in a few minutes, there would be no space left here.

Lincoln Memorial

As I said the memorials aren't worth visiting, so skipped this one. The pic is just a zoomed version. But not a place for keeping a step.

Washington Monument

This one memorial is somewhat ok. This was the centre of all attraction. Too huge crowds out here.

One can go to the top to have a nice view of the city. But looking at the mass of people, there was no chance.

White House

We couldn't find the front part of the White House. Anyways we had planned to see the fireworks from a park called Lafayette Square; which was right behind White house. So the views are the backyard of it.

Finally at 9.10 pm the sky was lit by brilliant fireworks. Althoug have captured them in video; I think watching it live was much more crisp and pleasant.

The video is about 6 minutes long. If you don't plan to watch the entire thing watch the final 2 minutes.

Museum of Natural History

Almost everyone recommended this musuem; but I didn't find it any interesting except the gems and minerals section.

Various sections here :

1. Early life forms

2. Fossilized remains

3. Bones

4. Ocean life.

5. Human Ancestors - who do they resemble?

6. Human Civilizations

A "CAT" Mummy

Remember this- you must have seen this in your history textbooks. But why is it in the US?

7. Gems and jewllery.

8. Minerals and ores.

9. Rocks and meteriotes

National Aerospace Museum

Various historical flying objects. Divided into various sections:

1. Wright Brothers - the first planes.

2. The rise of military planes.

3. World War 2 planes.

4. Naval planes.

5. Space launcher rockets and satellites.

Rear part of Rocket for Saturn mission

Mars Rover:

Hubble Telescope Mirror:

6. Missiles.

Many from the cold war era.

Washington DC Botanical Garden

This is the best thing I found in DC. Infact I loved it so much that I clicked 200+ images in under 1.5 hours.

The blog has only few images. For the entire collection, visit the Picasa link:

DC Botanical Gardens

The botanical garden is divided into the open garden and the green house.

Many of the plants are from various parts of the world.

The open garden is for plants that can adjust to the weather here all round the year.

The green house is temperature controlled for plants from various countries that cannot survive the DC weather. Not the entire thing with a single temperature. But it has many sections with various different temperatures.

Some parts are quite hot like those for cactus plants. So the green house helps trap the heat for such plants.

Some are quite cold maybe because they come from cold places .

The Mushroom's place has periodic jets of water sprayed to maintain damp conditions.

There are stairs that lead you to the 2nd floor of the green house. It gives a good view of the entire place.

Something creepy up there: