Day Eleven: Panthers, The New South, And Robert Downey Jr.

As I had only one full day in Charlotte, I wanted to make of good a use of it as I could.  To get the day off to a relatively poor start, the rain was heavy and it was a Sunday, meaning the museums had limited opening times.  My bad mood quickly dissipated however as soon as I entered the city.

The cabbie dropped me off in the south downtown area, right next to the Carolina Panthers stadium.  Although it was completely closed down, I managed to get some good photos of the exterior.  Slowly but surely, I was beginning to tick off a number of the NFL stadiums.

Charlotte is the second largest and most important financial centre in North America and located in it are many banks headquarters.  This wealth meant that the city was full of skyscrapers and the streets were immaculately clean with trees and fountains all the way down.  As everything was still shut down at this point I managed to find a Starbucks so I could Skype my parents.  By the time that had finished, the visitor centre had opened so I wandered over there to see how best to use my time in the city.  After some sage advice, I walked over to the Mint Museum which contained a number of artworks and objects throughout the history of North Carolina.  The favourites of mine were a number of wooden sculptures by a local artist and the saltworks by Motoi Yamamoto, a Japanese artist, who would create intricate patterns on floors and walls using sea salt.

The next museum I visited, the Levine Museum of the New South, was one of the best I had visited in America.  Although I had studied American history up until the Civil War and from WWII onwards, I had little understanding of the gap in between.  This was the topic that the museum covered.  What the museum lacked in funding, in comparison to the national museums, it made up for in rich detailed knowledge.  Of particular interest to me was the state of civil rights and the growth of the KKK in the Carolinas after the end of the civil war.  After some initial progress, African Americans and poor white farmers were again effectively denied voting rights due to their lack of wealth and property.  There was also a section on the success of busing (sending children of each race to other neighbourhoods to encourage integration in schools) in North Carolina which was eventually discontinued leading to the de facto school segregation of children from different races.

By this time, although I thoroughly enjoy them, I was getting tired of walking around museums, trying to absorb every little piece of information so I headed down to the entertainment capital of the city, the EPICentre.  I had an amazingly good burger in a sports bar whilst watching the NBA playoffs and flirting a little with the waitress (she loved the accent).  As there was still much of the evening to go I decided to visit the cinema.  With only 4 movies showing I had little choice so I went with the best available, Iron Man 3 (I know I said 'best' available) and went to the screen to take my seat.  On the way into the cinema I was handed a menu... a menu?!?!  I calmly enquired as to the purpose, to be told that you could order main meals in the cinema as people would walk around and take your order.  When I went to sit down, I was apparently the only person who was not opting for such a service.  Not only that but I had a double-sized seat all to myself... AND IT RECLINED (*simulates shooting myself in the head*).  The film itself could have been worse I guess but it is definitely not my kind of film.

Another semi-expensive cab ride back to the motel, some more baseball, and eventually- sleep.

Day Ten: Road Trip, Charlotte, And A King-Size Room

I managed to pack without waking too many people up and I walked down to Union Station to get the Megabus to Charlotte.  The journey itself was not too eventful as you couldn't get too good a view of the surrounding countryside (Virginia and North Carolina).

We eventually pulled into the outskirts of Charlotte at about 4pm from where I got a cab to my motel near the airport (my 20 minute cab cost more than the 9 hour coach!)  I had to stay in a motel because there were not any hostels in the Charlotte area.  Fortunately, the motel was pretty nice and I managed to get a king-sized room for the same price as a basic room.  After a few days in a hostel, it was nice to have your own room and double bed in which to spread out.  Being a little boring, I switched on the TV to watch some baseball before getting an early night.

Day Nine: Holocaust, Library again, And More Drinks

The only thing I now had a burning desire to see in Washington was the Holocaust Museum.  As Pete, Kory, and Amanda also wanted to see it, for the first time in my sightseeing, I had some company.

We arrived in good time to get tickets to the exhibition which were scheduled for an hours time.  To make the wait more interesting we thought that in the meantime we would walk the streets surrounding the museum.  Little did we know that as soon as we stepped outside, the queue had increased by about 100 times meaning that we had to join at the back immediately just to make sure we got back inside in time.

One of the side-exhibits perhaps intrigued me the most.  It had to do with collaboration and complicity of ordinary citizens.  To me this as impossible question to answer as although we all believe that in that situation we would risk our lives to save Jews, the fact that millions of people did not means that the matter was far more complicated.  It would be absurd to suggest that, by nature, Germans were inherently more 'evil' than those people who lived in other countries.  Anti-Semitism was (and is) by no means a Germany-only phenomenon.  In my opinion, it is a nigh on unobtainable goal to decide where the blame lies.  All you can do is open up an exhibit about the topic and expose people to many viewpoints.

The exhibition proper was just as distressing, depressing, and disturbing as one would imagine. It begins with the rise of the Nazis and ends with the aftermath of the 'Final Solution'.  To try and explain the exhibit in mere words would be doing it a disservice, and so I encourage everyone to visit it for themselves.

As I had done all the things I had set out to at the beginning of my trip to Washington, I decided to follow the others around to wherever they wanted to go.  Because of my strong recommendation of the Library of Congress, we headed there for my second visit.  Fortunately for me, I enjoyed it as much as the first as this tour guide talked about many different topics from my first tour guide.

In the evening we again went out into the city, this time to a bustling area known as Adams Morgan where again we visited a few more bars.

I had enjoyed my time in Washington very much, it remains one of my favourite cities, however time was running out and I needed to move on.  I set my alarm for early early morning (5.30am) to catch my bus to Charlotte, North Carolina.

Day Eight: Government, Learning, and Drinks in Georgetown

Having already spent a few days in Washington, and with time running out, I thought it was necessary to go to the 'Centre' of the city, the reason for its existence, the Capitol building.  Although I had not booked a tour, as I was by myself, it was quite easy to pick up spare tickets.  There were hundreds of young schoolchildren on field trips but fortunately I managed to get on a small tour with a good tour instructor.

After a short movie explaining the history of the building (including when the Brits burned down the city in the War of 1812) we headed into 'The Crypt'.  in the middle of this room was the central point in the city, directly under the dome.  Where the spot stood was supposed to be where George Washington would be buried.  However, by the time the building was complete, Washington has already been dead for 50 or so years and he in his will stated that he wanted to be buried at his own house in Mount Vernon, 20 miles from the city.  So instead of a piece of historical importance, all we got was a little plaque.

The next room however was a tad more interesting. We walked into a large circular hall, directly below the Capitol dome.  On all the walls around the hall were 12 amazing paintings of scenes throughout American history including Columbus 'discovering' America and the marriage of Pocahontas.  The dome itself was also very impressive and it was a shame that you could not go any higher to get a better look.  From this room we headed to the old meeting room of the House that was used before the numbers of representatives became too high.  In this space were a number of statues representing great figures from the individual states.  Each state gets to donate 2 such statues to the collection which they can change at any time.  After this, the tour was over which was a little disappointing seeing as we only saw a tiny section of the entire building.  I did however manage to get tickets to gain entrance to both chambers of the legislature.  After many security checks, you eventually got to sit in the chambers and absorb the history from such important places.  The only shame was that at the time of my visit, neither of the chambers was sitting for debate.  After the Capitol building was done, I grabbed a bite to eat and headed on the underground walkway to the Library of Congress.

The library provided perhaps the biggest surprise of the Washington visit.  Although I expected a nice building with some impressive architecture, I was not prepared for how beautiful it was.  Immediately upon my entrance, I managed to secure a tour of the building with the greatest tour guide in America.  He managed to bring the building to life and to impart the significance of the work the library does.  Effectively, the Library holds millions of copies of books, newspapers, magazines, CDs, DVDs, maps, comics etc so as to accumulate all human knowledge.  There is no subject of which the Library does not collect.  However, although they claim to have the most documents on the planet, the British Library actually has more as they also collect patents.  All over the main building are paintings, sculptures and mosaics symbolising the depth and breadth of knowledge contained.  All subjects, professions, nationalities, ages and races are allowed to study within the library.  Although I currently cannot put up pictures on the blog, I did take many of them and I hope to post them to Facebook as soon as I can.  In the centre of the hall were displayed some incredible documents- a 15th century handwritten copy of the Bible and opposite, an original first edition copy of the Gutenberg Bible.  To see with my own eyes one of the most important historical pieces of all time was quite a moment.  The last part of the tour allowed us to oversee one of the reading rooms, which put the the British Library to shame.

Also as part of the Library were 2 mini-exhibitions, one on historical maps (the centre-piece being the first map ever contain the word 'America' on), and the other on the American Civil War.  From this exhibit, my main attraction came in the form of the contents of Abraham Lincoln's pockets from the night he was assassinated, including, interestingly enough, a $5 Confederate banknote.  Also in this exhibit was Thomas Jefferson's original library, the one he sold to Congress to begin the library's collection.

After seeing what the Legislative side of American politics had to offer, I thought a visit to the home of American Justice was in order.  Fortunately for me, that meant only a 40 second walk. 

On the steps of the Supreme Court I had my first crisis of conscience.  A man was standing with a placard proclaiming some questionable viewpoints on the relationship between the Bible and abortion.  I stood around uneasily trying to think of the wittiest riposte when he asked me whether I wanted my picture taken in front of the building. I weighed up in my mind the outcome of such an undertaking and decided to sell my soul and let the man to take the photo, and you know what, it wasn't half-bad.

There was not too much to do within the Supreme Court but I did manage to tag along to the last talk of the day.  Unbeknownst to me, the talk took place within the courtroom proper, allowing me to reflect upon the tremendous highs, and shocking lows of the decisions made in that room (Brown Vs. Board of Education and Plessy Vs. Ferguson as cases in point).  For the rest of the time until the building closed, I walked the corridors, admiring (and detesting) the busts and paintings of previous justices.

When I got home to the hostel, I ate and showered, preparing myself for my first 'night out' in the States.  When the rest of the group (Jesse, Jessica, Kory, Konrad, Amanda, and Pete) had congregated we headed across to Georgetown (college area) to find a few good bars.  After some good American larger and onion rings, we ended up at a nice piano bar.  Most of the rest of the night was spent sitting around the piano trying to convince the musician to play some of my favourite songs.  Victory was finally achieved when at 1.30am, he played 'Like A Rolling Stone'.



Problems With Photos

Unfortunately I seem to be having some issues with getting some photographs onto my posts. Because of is, at this moment, and will just write the blog and hope to add the photos as soon as I get over there issues.

Day Seven: Newseum Again, Famous Art, and German Dominance

After a decent, much needed, sleep I tucked into a staff prepared pancake and maple syrup breakfast and planned out my day. As I got an unexpected amount done the day before, I felt less pressurised for time. My first destination of the day was a trip back to the Newseum to finish off the exhibits I missed.

One of the advantages of the location of my hostel was that to get to the attractions in the city, you would walk right past the Capitol building and right down The Mall. As today was a far more pleasant day than previously, I retook many photos, including some new ones in front of the Capitol fountain.

When I got back into the Newseum, the next exhibit I saw was about news coverage of the 9/11 attacks. The centrepiece of the exhibit was a portion of the television and radio mast that sat atop one of the towers. It was very mangled but mainly in tact...

Also displayed prominently (you can see in the picture above) were the newspaper headlines from around the world, proclaiming shock, anger, war, and just telling the news.  The most affecting part of the exhibit however, was a short video interviewing journalists who were on the scene right after the aeroplanes bit and during the collapse of the towers (unbelievably, only one journalist, a photographer, died- his recovered equipment and photographs were on display).

On the next level down, the question of press freedom and ethics were scrutinised. My two favourites of the exhibition was the world press freedom map, colour-coding the level of press freedom (surprisingly), and an interactive quiz on what you would do in ethically grey situations. The question that took my interest was about a 3 year old starving Sudanese child crawling on the ground to a UN food camp. A vulture flew onto the ground next to her and you, a photographer, was asked whether you would help the girl or take the photo and do nothing. I opted for helping the girl but the majority of press responses would have been the other option. There reasoning would be that far more impact would be made with the photo than helping the girl. In one way, they were right, the story was real, and the photographer (Kevin Carter) won a Pulitzer Prize and helped put the spotlight of famine in Africa.

                                            

It later emerged that Kevin had waited 20 minutes hoping that the vulture would open its wings. In defence of Kevin however, it should be noted that UN aid workers told people not to touch the children as they were likely diseased and this could spread the disease. He also regretted his decision for the rest of his life and he committed suicide several years later. As sad as the story is, it shows the difficulty of morals and ethics in journalism.

On the bottom floor they was an exhibit on Pulitzer Prize winning photographs including all the winners and many of the stories behind the photos. It is in these photos that the joy and sadness, cowardice and courage, and good and evil of life are clearly shown. Many of these photos are universally recognisable (raising the flagon Iwo Jima and the naked Vietnamese girl running from the napalm) and have played a huge part in contributing to public perception.

After the Newseum, I spent the next couple of hours in the National gallery across the street.  The fact I only had an hour or so meant that I couldn't enjoy the visit as much as I would have liked, especially since the gallery featured thousands of paintings. After walking briskly through the Pre-Renaissance art, stopping only to take photos of painters I had heard of, I spent a little more time in the 17th, 18th, and 19th century European works. Although I did not get a full 'experience', I did manage to see some Turner, Rembrandt, Monet, Constable, Holbein, Bosch, and Van Gogh. The temporary exhibit was on the Pre-Raphelite English painters which again, unfortunately I could not spend too much time around. I did however manage to see 'Ophelia', a favourite of mine.

With all this talk of running out of time, I should admit the reason that this was the case. Quite simply, it was the second leg of Bayern Munich v Barcelona, and at the time (and let's be honest, in hindsight as well) I thought this was a better use of time. I watched the game with a German guy from the hostel enjoying a good cheap pitcher of beer. Although the result was not as I wanted, seeing the One True Sport did give me a comfortable taste of home.

With everything closed after the match had finished I headed back to the hostel and spent a few hours catching up in my blog, and chatting with some new arrivals: Jesse, Amanda, and Peter from Australia, and Jessica from Wales. Tomorrow I would make my advance on Capitol Hill and see what delights American democracy had in store for me.

Day Six: Greyhound, Hostel, and Washington D.C.

Waking up at 6.00am is never the greatest start to the day but we managed to get away on time and get a bus to Port Authority in Manhattan. Here I said goodbye to my uncle after a few wonderful days with his family and I waited for my Greyhound bus to D.C. The bus journey itself was uneventful though quite comfortable. I managed to get a few more hours sleep and spent the rest of the 4 1/2 hour journey getting myself in the American mood by listening to New York and New Jersey classics- 'Illmatic' by Nas, and 'Born to Run' by Bruce Springsteen.

The journey also enabled me to tick off a few states on the map. I have travelled through New York, New Jersey, Maryland, the District of Columbia and one of my favourite states (Kate Wood Hill)...

After arriving at Union Station...

It was only a 15 minute walk to my hostel.  The hostel itself was pleasant if nothing too special. I am in a co-ed room with six bunks although at the time of writing this, I don't know who else is actually in my room. After dumping my bag I headed straight back out into the city as I did not want to waste any valuable time. I have already been to Washington before which helped as I knew which monuments and museums I most wanted to visit.

At first I headed to the Capitol building for a few photos, I walked down the Mall to the 'Newseum', a museum about news throughout history. Whereas most of the attractions in the city are free, unfortunately this one cost me $25 to get in. Fortunately though, it turned out to be a very good museum.

During my first day's visit, I managed to see a real section of the Berlin Wall, as well as one of the towers from near Checkpoint Charlie. The temporary exhibit on the top floor was about the assassination of JFK from the point of view of the media, including all the newspaper headlines from the next day as well as broadcasts covering the minutes and hours after the event. The highlight was watching the Walter Cronkite broadcast (very famous) announcing the President's death. A normally unshakeable Cronkite very clearly shaken. The next part of the museum was a history of front covers of newspapers featuring over 600 covers from across the world from the 1600s to the modern day including the Declaration of Independence, The Assassination of Jesse James, The death of Hitler, and man landing on the moon. At this time with museum closing, I moved onto the National Archive building just across the road on The Mall.

Although this building is famous for housing all the important documents of government, including the original Decleration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights, the real treat came in the queue for these pieces. Tucked away in the corner of the room housing the documents stood a far more important document in world history and politics... An original copy of the Magna Carta. The document itself was in staggeringly good condition considering its age (1215), and you could still translate enough of the Old English for it to be legible to the reader.

By this time the Museums had all closed, but the monuments had not. First stop was the White House...

Here I had some quick business to attend to. Unfortunately for Baz (Barack to all of you plebs), I told him I would have to stop drafting foreign policy as I needed to work my way down the Mall. After shaking the Secret Service agents I made it to the World War II  memorial which is a fitting tribute and powerful memorial to those who served and contributed to the effort. A short walk through a memorial garden stood a far more understated yet equally powerful monument, that to the Veterans of the Vietnam War. Cut into plain patch of grass, the memorial simply lists the names of those who died in Vietnam (over 100,000 American soldiers). What makes this memorial unique is the number of personal messages and bouquets laid at the floor of the marble walls. The reminder here that those lost are much closer to us historically than the other monuments.  Furthermore, whereas the other monuments seem to be boldly and proudly showing their messages of a great feat or individual, the Vietnam memorial quietly mourns a generation of men lost for a questionable cause. From here I crossed over to the highlight of the monument tour, the Lincoln memorial. Rising high in the skyline, in front of the Reflecting Pool and opposite the Capitol building, sits a great figure. Walking up the steps to the statue itself (housed in a Greek-style temple) you are overpowered by a sense of importance. This is only furthered when you see the plaque marking the spot from where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his 'I Have A Dream Speech'. Either side of the statue, who sits dominantly yet confidently over his viewers, stand the only things that can do a man such as him, justice, his words. In my mind 'The Gettysburg Address' is the most eloquently simple message, yet powerful speech ever to have been given. Further around stands the new Martin Luther King memorial that was being built at the time of my most recent visit to the city. Although the quotes on the walls surrounding the statue were wonderfully chosen, the statue itself does not do the man justice, and looks more like a caricature. The next monument, to great president FDR, is the most interesting, as it stretches out lengthways, featuring a number of different sections covering all his achievements and his three presidential terms. After visiting the George Mason memorial (don't worry, I hadn't heard of him either), and the more recognisable Jefferson memorial, I had completely tired myself out.

After such an early start and a comprehensive walking tour of Washington, I thought it best to head back to the Hostel and get a decent sleep. Tomorrow, I would try and see many more museums.