Day of Many Tours

Today I finally got to sleep in just a bit thank goodness because the three hour time change was kicking my butt. I went down to Rachel's office and met up with her for my tour of the Capital building.

 The fun little subway they have between the Russell Building and the Capital.

 Rachel gave me my own private little tour! I felt pretty special. This was the old Supreme Court Chamber which was on the bottom floor and as you can see it was rather dark.In fact Washington's crypt which was never used was right down the hall.

 The dome in the Senate side of the Capital. We went into the Senate chambers for a few minutes to watch since they were in session. The house was not.

 This is the crypt which is beneath the main rotunda. It has lots of people. 

Some are statues and some are real. lol

 In the center of the floor there is this marker. This marker was used to lay out the streets of Washington DC. Tradition has it that if you put your foot in the center of the marker you have good luck. Who's going to resist that? Does my foot look tired yet. Well it will by the end of the day for sure.

 This is the balcony. I think it was called the Speaker's balcony and it's big enough for just a couple of people. An incredible view of the mall right behind me!

 On the way out from the Speakers balcony I wanted to stop and take a picture of the door to the Speaker of the Houses door but the secretary told me no pictures. So I went through this door and turned around and took a picture. I am a rebel at heart apparently.

 This is the huge dome and it is being restored right now so they have a huge cloth to catch any pieces that may fall.It looked kinda cool actually. Besides what's a Cooper trip without scaffolding and construction.

Pocahontas' baptism was one of the huge paintings under the rotunda.

This was the old Senate chambers. Very ornate and grand.

 

Each state was allowed to put two statues somewhere in the Capital building and this is Brigham Young from Utah.

 

 The dome under the House side of the Capital building.

 After my Capital tour Rachel and I went back to the Russell building for lunch. When we were getting ready to get on the elevator in the basement Mitch McConnell and his secret service team were getting off. It was way cool to see him so close! He looked more powerful and had a better presence I thought than on tv. Cool. So we ate in the cafeteria because Mendis had raved about it and I wanted to check it out just us girls.

 After lunch I scurried over to the Library of Congress for my tour. It was pretty amazing but unfortunately you can't get into the really cool rooms like the reading rooms. I enjoyed hearing more about it though and they had a great gift shop lol.

 Jefferson's library

 The reading room that I recognized from National Treasure. I wanted to get in there pretty bad!

 Then I had just enough time to run to my tour of the Supreme Court. You aren't allowed to take pictures in there so this was it ..the cool spiral staircase. It really was cool. From there I ran back to the Library of Congress so I could check out some more exhibits and look around since I ran out of time before. I decided to go get my own Library of Congress card so next time I am there I can go into the reading room and do "research". After that I met up with everyone and we went to get dinner. We wanted to go Mexican for Cinquo de mayo but there was no hope of getting a table. So we went out to Foggy Bottom and went to Founding Farmers. An excellent choice. The only problem was the hour + wait. So since George Washington University was right down the street we went to check it out.

Jeff's home away from home

 

 I wanted Jeff to pose for me pretending to study but he would have none of that so Rachel stepped up. This is the hilarious result. Go Rachel.

Jeff @ his locker

 

 So it was finally time for dinner after we walked all around the whole campus. It was worth the wait. Excellent food. And as you can plainly see, excellent dessert!

My now famous picture of leaving Jeff & Rachel at the Metro station. While it was sad to say good night the real goodbye a few days later was defiantly worse.