One of the things we had wanted to do in Washington, unsurprisingly, was go to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. So, up we got on this bright Sunday morning, ready to head out by 9am to avoid the queues. We ended up being detained by getting talking to the other people in our room, since we hadn't had a chance to talk the previous evening. There was a posh English guy travelling by himself and another English couple, called Sophie and Sam, who were really sweet. We ended up standing around talking in our room for a good half an hour or so and thus epicly failing at making it out of the hostel early. Standard.
Somehow, the posh boy, whose name we later found out was Hughbert (not even kidding!) ended up talking his way into joining us on our Holocaust Museum adventure, so off we went.
It was insanely hot and humid outside even though it was barely 10am. Our hostel was in a great location: to get to the museum we actually had to pass the White House and several other important monuments and buildings. When we came across the White House we were significantly underwhelmed, but this may have been because we first saw it from the back. By the time we made it round to the front, the traditional view was slightly more impressive, but still nothing on the scale of what we were expecting. We also got into trouble for trying to avoid all the masses of tourists by walking on the road, and were shouted at by an armed policeman. The security in Washington is crazy, if a little unnecessary; there are literally guys stood around with huge guns everywhere you look. I'm not sure how this is meant to make the people feel safe, but whatever.
After failing to spot Barack, we continued our journey down to the Holocaust Museum in the sweltering heat. The best thing about Washington is that all the museums are free, something which is very interesting considering the amount of tourists they attract. Once inside the air con of the museum, we got ourselves a ticket for the permanent exhibition and started to explore.
For a free museum, it really was quite the experience. Before we hit up the permanent exhibition, we watched a film in a huge lecture theatre about Hitler's rise to power, and visited an exhibition on Nazi propaganda before, during and after the war. The propaganda exhibition was really interesting and slightly terrifying! But, having studied both Nazi Germany and some of the Nazi propaganda films, I thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing!
Next, we headed to the permanent exhibition. For this, you go up in a lift four floors, to work your way down, and are given an identification card with the story of a real person inside it. As you go through the exhibition, you can follow the story of your person alongside the historical events that unfold to find out if they lived, or at what stage they died. As we went up in the lift, we were told that some of the museum staff and guides were themselves Holocaust survivors, which was very intriguing to know.
The exhibition really was very good and lived up to all its hype. Obviously it started with life for Jews in Europe pre-1930s and documented each stage of the Nazi's persecution. One of the most moving sections was a room where the voices of Auschwitz survivors were played, each telling a different part of their story. Auschwitz and the concentration camps were represented very cleverly, with a wooden train carriage you could walk through to see how they were transported to the camps, and real examples of the bunk beds and the piles of shoes/glasses etc that were left behind. One of the parts I found the most interesting was the section about the liberation of the camps. There was a display of three screens showing footage from the liberation of Dachau, Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen simultaneously; footage so horrific that it is almost impossible to imagine how it would have felt to experience any of it first hand. Right at the end was a large screen showing interviews with survivors and some American soldiers involved in the liberation. Whilst we were watching, a woman told the emotional story of being on one of the death marches for over three months, her being the first person the American soldiers found, and that she ended up marrying the American soldier who had found her and was also Jewish! So, a somewhat positive end to a serious day!!
On a much less serious note, we had noticed the same strange smell that we had noticed in the dorm the previous evening emanating from good old Hugh as we wandered around the museum. We soon realised it was his feet (he was wearing leather shoes with no socks). This was just the beginning of the smelly-feet-drama that was to unfold over the next few days...
When we eventually emerged from the museum, it was about 3 o clock and we were all starving. We headed back to the hostel, stopping at a Pret a Manger en route. Here we finally got rid of our posh friend with smelly feet, as we headed to Forever21 across the road in search of some kind of shoes since all ours are beginning to meet their fateful end.
Needless to say, we epicly failed at finding any shoes, but still managed to spend hours browsing through the clothes. When we finally got back to the hostel, we found Liz had arrived and was already in the TV room watching the Olympics.
All three of us were hungry so we headed out to find some food, and wound up at a pub like place, which was playing the Olympics and did steak, which Kitty desperately wanted. Upon deciding which to choose she stated the gem which became the title of this blog: 'top sirloin for a top lad.'
After we had eaten, we headed straight back to the hostel to chill out and watch some more Olympics. The American coverage is so strange, they show hardly anyone else besides themselves, are patronising and dismissive of the other teams, and of course there are adverts every few minutes. It was nice to watch some of the swimming, diving and gymnastics though, so we quickly learnt to deal with it! Once the coverage finished, we headed to bed, ready to be up early and be mega tourists in the morning...
