Week 3, part one

Yet another view of the Capitol

This week's "field trip" for us British interns of the Navy museum was the United States Botanic Garden on Capitol Hill.

It was like Kew gardens, but in Washington D.C. So basically, Kew gardens, with a view of the Capitol Building in the background, and no temperature or humidity difference between the green houses and the outside. In fact, I’m pretty sure we discovered that some of the greenhouses were actually less sticky than walking around outside…

Botanical Gardens

Washington D.C: where greenhouses are less humid than your own office/ apartment.

Titan Arum, one of the largest flower species in the world, over 6 foot

This flower blooms very rarely, it even has a webcam on it constantly, to monitor its progress. Anyway, the day after we go to the gardens, it begins to blossom. Typical. Although, it is nicknamed the "corpse" plant, and it is supposed to smell "like roadkill on a hot day" so missing that may have been a blessing in disguise!

Tropical!

 

See, just like Kew Gardens/ a greenhouse, with the Capitol in the background

After the Botanic gardens we were going to go to get a tour around the Capitol, but they wanted to throw away my bag. More specifically, their security arrangements demanded that all food, drink, bug spray, sun tan lotion etc. be discarded, and as that was practically everything I had on me, I decided it wasn't worth it and went to the Air & Space museum instead.  

 

Planes!

The Air & Space museum is one of the biggest in the world. Walking past security, and into the museum itself, felt like walking into an airport terminal, a feeling magnified by the height of the ceiling and glass walls.

 

How hot air balloons should be...

 

Although the Air & Space museum is one of the most popular attractions under the Smithsonian banner, I have to admit that I'm not that mad on air and space travel. 4 well-spent hours later though, I have been somehwhat converted. Ok, so 1/2 an hour of the total time was spent going through security (a school of Chinese children arrived just prior to me...) but the rest of the time I was busy admiring aerial exhibits and poking bits of rock, supposedly from the moon (I mean, it could have been fake, and I wouldn't have be able to tell - who would?)

Most fascinating things learnt;

• The Aral sea is shrinking
• "Planet" comes from the Greek word "planetes", meaning "wanderer"
• Io (a moon of Jupiter's) is the only object in this solar system, other than Earth, that shows signs of current volcanic activity
• Telescopes are actually time machines, because we are seeing things that happened days/ months ago by the time light reaches us on Earth
• The "Big Bang" was an explosion OF the universe, as it expanded, not an explosion into some finite "space"
• If cars could drive straight up, vertically, "space" is only 1 hour away
• The distance, by car, between Washington D.C and New York City is how high above Earth the International Space Station is
• Barrage Balloons were hung over Buckingham palace during WW2 to prevent German bombers from getting too close

Seeing the drawings of the Wright brothers reminded me of the sketches from Da Vinci's notebook, which I studied last term. Perhaps the most arresting thing I saw was a display screen of the U.S air control, with the pathways of different flights, and their directions, appearing as coloured lines which zig-zag across the States. In the bottom left-hand corner was a timer, with the hour and date. The footage for 9/11, after about 10am, shows an ominously dark screen, as the lights representing flights, the colours and the lines, disappear one by one.

Week 2, part one

So I've been in the U.S for over a week now. I get the Circulator to work, I walk to the apartment building where other interns are staying, I show the new interns where the lunchroom is. I've started making a list of all of the things I want to do before I leave.

Alternatively, there are a few things that I'm still thrown off balance by;

a) the casual manner of people at work, e.g. using expressions such as "hey buddy", "knock yourself out" etc. During the Enlightenment, Voltaire stated that the defining characteristics of a people/ nation. The historian Edward Gibbon agreed. I don't get offended by the casual and conversational manner of some Americans, I'm just not used to it, and could never imagine the same atmosphere between myself and my tutors at university!

b) the size of portions everywhere. I can't finish a meal here in any restaurant, and everything just seems excessivly big. Leading onto my next point...

c) trying to find normal-sized food in a supermarket is a true mission. Everything is multi-pack, or sold in deals which makes you buy more, or just over-sized. What I thought was a multi-pack of crisps ("chips") turned out just to be a massive bag, with a suggested serving for one person! Even the bottles of tomato sauce are huge, as if they're meant for businesses or something.

d) American television. Need I say more. Reality tv programmes on every channel, the fact that there is constant repetition (snippets of a programme are shown in previews, then before an advert break, and then "re-capped" two mintues later when the programme begins again...) and even the news here seems very opinionated! I miss the BBC coverage which would never refer to the Duchess of Cambridge as "Kate" and convicted murderers as "killers" or children as "kids".

e) the fact that nothing is energy-efficient, and there is no proper recycling in this area! Seems extraordinary in the 21st century.

Yet, there are still unexpected things which remind me of home!

This is a display in the museum concerning Bletchley Park! Coming thousands of miles away from Milton Keynes this was great to see. Living so close to it I think I sometimes forget the significance of the place, even though I wrote my GCSE History coursework on it.

 

 

I suppose it really shouldn't suprise me that there was direct communication between Bletchley Park and Washington D.C during WW2, with the breaking of the Enigma code. Despite this, it's great to be in the middle of an unfamiliar place, and be able to point at a picture and think "I've been there! I know this!"

Vocabulary learnt;

- "catfish"/ "catfishing", when someone sets up a social networking profile, assuming a false identity, with the hope of deceiving someone else.
- "invested" - don't think this is necessarily American, but the saying is popular here in terms of expressing commitment and emotional attachment, e.g, "in the movie I felt like I wasn't really invested in that character, unlike in the book, I just didn't care what happened to them"