Washington DC Trip: Day 4

Have you ever wanted to be a spy? Today we had the opportunity to do so. Our first item on our itinerary was to go and visit the International Spy Museum. Oddly enough I heard about this place from one of my 6th students who said that I had to go and see it when I came out here. I can see why kids and adults would like it, because who doesn't want to be a spy? In addition to attending the museum Jason and I did a little something extra as well. The museum offers a special program called "Spy in the City," where you get a GPS device and run around DC finding clues and tracking spies. It was such a blast! We had to run to a bank, a post office, and even the FBI building and find clues along the way. Sometimes we would have to solve a puzzle by finding information around us or decode a message by using famous landmarks. It was pretty impressive and we were laughing the whole time at how much fun we were having. Below is a picture of me with the GPS device and we had to break the anagram code by counting the letter in this plaque that is a real one made for FDR behind the building where the US Constitution is kept.

We spent a good chunk of the morning at the Spy Museum but we are always on the move and had to catch the Metro to make it to our next appointment. This tour was a special one for Jason being a promising lawyer. We were able to go and have a tour of The Supreme Court. We actually got to go and sit in the main court room where you see so many pictures of the Supreme Court Justices. Jason was just entranced the whole time like a kid in a candy store! Here we are standing outside of the building after the tour.

A new museum that has made its way to Washington DC is called the Newseum. No I didn't misspell "museum," because this museum specifically deals with the news. It was actually a very impressive building that went through history but through the eyes of the newspapers and newscasts. It was fun to see which ones we remembered and which ones really impacted history. It also talked about the importance of free speech and how the news and media has developed throughout time. One of the most interesting artifacts that they had there was one of the flag towers from the Word Trade Towers. That was an event that we remember well and it really made me stop and think about Sept. 11th and how I hadn't thought about it since we went and saw Ground Zero in NYC last year. Here is a picture of us standing on the top of the Newseum building looking out over Wash DC.

We found food that evening and called it a night! On our way home I snapped a quick picture of Jason by one of the Metro stands. Public transportation is the only way to travel in big cities like DC. Here is the cutie!