Day 7: Cathedral, Art, & Return Home

Our plane didn't leave until late afternoon, so we had some time to see a few more sights.

We started out with the Washington National Cathedral. There isn't a metro stop very close to the cathedral, so we got as close as we could and then walked a mile or so. The scenery was very beautiful and we enjoyed the serenity of mid-morning when few people are out.

Here are some houses that we passed.

The cathedral is on a bit of a hill, and we got to walk through a park to get there.
Although it looks like an old European cathedral, the foundation stone was lain only about 100 years ago.
On the inside, we did see a small piece of the Appian Way. Woodrow Wilson is also buried here (the only president to be buried within Washington, DC). Martin Luther King, Jr., preached his last Sunday sermon here in 1968.
I really loved the way that the stained glass colored this statue of Washington:
After our visit, we took the metro back into downtown in order to see the East Building of the National Gallery.

Along the way, we found this funny sign:
The wall above which this sign is posted was made of stone. We couldn't imagine what precipitated the need for this sign. Was there a huge problem of people kicking the wall? We thought this sign might invite kicking from people who hadn't even considered it before. In any case, I had to double back to get a picture, and this provided us with several minutes of conversation.

This is the West Building, that we saw yesterday:
Although we really like art installations, we are less sure about modern paintings. I find many of the aesthetically pleasing, but I certainly don't appreciate the genius, like here:
One of the things we like to do in modern painting rooms of art museums is guess the title of the work. (That's a warning to you, Mom, when we go to the Tate Modern in a few months!) We usually are way off, but occasionally come surprisingly close.

Try to guess this one. First, a long view, with Brian in the picture for perspective:
Then, a close-up, which should give you everything you need to crack this case:
Finally, the answer (this might be the longest title I've ever seen):
Earlier on in our trip, we passed a gentleman on a pay phone. This man was clearly angry, as his voice was raised and every other word out of his mouth began with an "F" and may not be used in polite conversation. He slammed the phone down and stomped away; we went the other way in case he pulled a weapon out of his pocket and started shooting. He was THAT angry.

But, that encounter provided us with hilarity for the rest of our trip. Whenever we'd see someone yelling at someone else (which happened surprisingly often; I can't remember the last time I was the perpetrator or recipient of such a scene in public), one of us would say, "That lady better watch out; she's going to get a phone call!"

We didn't think until the last day to take a picture of one of us on a pay phone; unfortunately it didn't turn out well, but well enough for us to remember the joke.
After our visit to the East Building, including a special exhibition on treasures from Afghanistan (on which there's a wonderful article in the Smithsonian magazine I received earlier this week!), we headed out for lunch.

Then it was time to go back to the apartment, pick up our bags, and head to the airport. The lady from whom we rented our apartment was so accommodating and allowed us to leave our bags there into the early afternoon as the apartment would be empty that night. She had said that if someone else would have been there, we could have left them at her house. What service!

The flight home was uneventful (direct, thankfully!) We quickly exited -- the joys of carry-on luggage only! -- but then had to wait for the shuttle bus to take us to long-term parking, where we had left our car for the week.Our car was just as we'd left it, and we headed home as quickly as possible!

As you can see, we had a wonderful time in DC and I would very much recommend this trip to anyone. There is so much history there, obviously, but also a lot of art, culture, and nature. We both really enjoyed the city and hope to make it back there sometime in the future!