Week 4, part three - the Supreme Court, the Capitol, and Banana bread!

I have no photos of the Supreme Court, because it is currently undergoing major restoration and surrounded by scaffolding. It's a beautiful neo-classical building covered in engravings and references to ancient culture. It was actually constructed in the 1930s, as for a long time the Supreme Court was without a building of its own. The East side of the buildings has a design which reflects the eastern law-giving tradition, with figures including Moses, Confucius and Solon. I really liked that. Other significant features include allegorical presentations of Justice (a blind-folded woman holding a set of scales) America (as a young woman), Commerce, Law and Wisdom.

The Supreme Court is the Judicial branch of the U.S government. It interprets all laws, tries cases affecting entire states, and foreign representatives. It also reviews the decisions and procedures of lower courts.

Other facts learnt today;

•  Princeton was founded in 1746 and known as the "College of New Jersey". I know this through looking at the college in which all of the old judges went to.
• The phrase "Equal Justice under the Law" was made up by the architects of the Supreme Court building because the letters fitted the space allocated! It doesn't have any great historical/ Biblical precedence.
• The first woman to be appointed to the Supreme Court was Sandra Day O'Connor, who came originally from rural Texas, in a house that had neither indoor plumbing nor electricity. She says that this taught her the value of hard work. I think the exhibit on her life was one of the most intriguing parts of the Supreme Court.

Close-up of the Rotunda in the Capitol Building. 13 dancing women (representing the original colonies) and George Washington (seated, with a lavender robe) ascent to Heaven.

Our tour of the Captiol took us all around the Legalislative branch of the U.S government. The Capitol is responsible for making law, approving Presidential appointments, treaties made by the Whitehouse (the Executive branch of the government) and raising public money. The Capitol also overseas the expenditure of public money, trials Federal officers, and declares war.

In the Rotunda (the dome structure) I got to see John Gadsby Chapman's painting The baptism of Pocahontas (1840)*. However, there were so many people, and our tour group moved through so quickly, that I only got a very blurry photo. I'm still happy I saw it though, I saw in on Wikipedia (Googling "Pocahontas" after visiting the National Museum of the American Indian) a few days ago and was intrigued.

*Link to picture; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Baptism_of_Pocahontas.jpg

Close-up of painting (although it looks like an engraving!) around the rim of the Rotunda

 Just on a side note, before we could enter the Capitol for our tour, there was a security incident of some sort, and everyone got moved from outside the Visitor's centre to the plaza in front of the Capitol building, whilst police, firefighters and men with dogs closed in. In the end, it was just someone's luggage which had been left, probably accidently. It's a reminder of the security risk that is a constant presence here. Our tour guide, who was an older woman, told us (at the end of the tour) about her day at work on the 11th of September, 2001.

She told us about how much more comprehensive the original tours of the Capitol were (e.g. visitors used to be allowed along the underground tunnels). She then told us about running for her life out of the East door of the Capitol with 7 members of the British parliament behind her. Her expression as she recounted turning around for what she thought was "one last look at the United States Capitol", and seeing the emotions of the rest of our tour group, it reminded me of how much 9/11 really has changed the mindset of the U.S forever.

Banana bread = success!

On a lighter note, my Banana bread did not fail despite use of "baking powder" (whatever that is) instead of Baking Soda. Nor did the fact that I used Balsamic vinegar instead of, I don't know, Malt vinegar, or whatever the normal type of vinegar is. Or, the fact that I was using a recipe which used "cups" as a valid unit of measurement. I switched between the BBC's recipe (not a stereotypical "Britain abroad" thing at all...) and some stuff I found on the back of the flour packet which was in the cupboard.

The loaf tin that I discovered in Safeway worked well! In short, the fact that anything I bake turned out edible is little short of a miracle. Hence the bananabread deserved a mention in a post alongside the US Capitol & Supreme Court.

Vocabulary learnt;

"s'mores" - a traditional nighttime campire treat, made up of a roasted marshmallow and a layer of chocolate sanwiched between two pieces of a cracker. My American workmates could not believe that I hadn't had one before, until I reminded them that in England, people don't usually have the opportunity to sit out on their driveways at night, toasting marshmallows.

President [Card game]. The aim of the game is to become "President", by getting rid of your hand of cards before the other players. To get rid of cards, you can put down pairs, and cards that are the same suit or number as the previous card laid down by another player. When someone puts down a "double" (two cards of the same number) the next person has to miss their turn. You have to put down a number higher than the previous card on the table. Hence, lower cards are a nuisance and are usually played first. Being left with two 2's is bad, I can't remember why. The best part of this game is the fact that the winner becomes "President", the next person to finish is "Vice President", after them is the "First Lady" and then "Constituent". The person who comes last has to give their two best cards to the President in the next round!

When asked if we had this card game in England, I replied that the answer was obviously no, as we don't have a President, and casually enquired whether the Americans in the room knew how to play the card game "Kings". They did not.

Week 2, part four

I've visited some amazing places over the last couple of days. Me and the other interns at the Navy musuem are lucky in the fact that we are genuinely finished by 4pm everyday and so can spend the evenings in town, enjoying the weather (which has improved dramatically in the last few days, and today hit 100 F/ 38 degrees Celsius.) In addition, the British interns spend Mondays doing fieldtrips around D.C, organised by the museum. Quite a few of the American interns also come with us, because they don't necessarily live near D.C, and to be honest, even if I was at home, and in London, there's always something to be seen!

One of my favourite parts of the American National history museum was the exhibitions on the Civil Right movement, from the Emancipation Proclaimation (1863) until the Civil Rights Act (1964). I studied the U.S Civil Rights movement at school (from the 1950s) and so it's great to be able to come here and see some phyiscal items of Martin Luther King Jr.'s, e.g a pocket watch he had engraved for a friend, frozen in time.  There are also highly sensitive items too, like shards of stained glass from the bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church (Birmingham, Alabama, 1963) which killed four African American girls whilst they were in Sunday school.

On a more light-hearted note, there was also a cabinet full of contemporary objects, titled The Making of Modern America which contained items such as Elphaba's costume (2003) from the Broadway musical Wicked. I know my sister at least will appreciate this!

The exhibit on "The First Lady" was also interesting, because the concept of the First Lady/ Family etc. is not hereditary, nor is it an official position, yet it still has an incredible impact on the American mindset. A dress of Michelle Obama's was on display in the centre of the exhibit alongside 18th C. Chinaware belonging to Abigail Adams (wife of the 2nd President), it's like a celebrity cult, continuing to the modern day. Before the title "First Lady" was settled on, the juxtaposition "republican queen" was considered!

National museum of the American Indian

Another fanatastic museum is that of the American Indian. I think part of the reason I enjoyed it so much was because I knew so little to begin with, shamefully my knowledge of Native Americans was formerly limited to information gleamed from Disney's Pocahontas. Now however I feel much better informed having read about initial interaction between English colonists and Native Americans in Jamestown (Virginia) 1607, all the way up to the present-day customs of American Indians, like the "Day of the Dead"(1st-2nd November) which became All Saints'/ Souls' day under Christianity.

3 things that stood out to me from this museum;

1. The museum itself was established in a 1989 Act of Congress, to promote awareness of the history of American Indians, and their place in modern American society
2. Everything in the Quecha (an American Indian tribe) is divided into Paña and Iloq'e. Paña is dark, masculine and present, where as Iloq'e is light, feminine and associated with the things of the past. Neither concept much concerns the future, as time was seen very differently (see below).
3. From the Maidu Creation story, notice the blurring and continuity between the past and present which makes their perception of their own history so intriguing;

"Turtle dove down, was gone for;
 four days,
four years,
four hundred years.
Time isn't that important."

// "over-time chaos returned,
Returns.
And the lessons proved true,
Are true."