What is Rain? + The Smithsonian (and not).

Let me just start out by saying that I love the East Coast. I will proceed with the fact that if I am not prepared for rain, I hate the East Coast. Today it rained. Today, it was also freezing OMG. It was so cold it starting hailing/snowing and Olaf could have come to life. My mom and I walked to three different museums that were "next door" to each other. Except that when I say "next door" I mean the equivalent of maybe 10 "next door" houses. This made walking in the rain really painful, and my jeans turned a few shades darker than they were originally. My favorite shoe was also completely soaked (I was only wearing one because my foot's broken, remember) and I learned that water-resistant and water-proof are two really different concepts.

Anyways, my mom and I went to the National Gallery of Art while my padre + other siblings went to the Air and Space Museum. (The Air and Space Museum is a Smithsonian institution, the art gallery is not.)

So the facade had a nice neoclassical flair and when we entered we ended up smack dab-in the rotunda, which looks a lot (and was probably inspired by) Andrea Palladio's Villa Rotunda (High Venicien Renaissance), as well as Hadrian's Dome. I saw a plethora artwork and even a handful of artists that I learned about in art history. Among them were Vigée Le Brun, West, David and Gainsborough.
Here's a Smarthistory video on "The Haywain" by John Constable. I didn't see this painting in particular, but I saw other works by him. I learned about "The Haywain" in art history.

My mom and I were going to go the the American History Museum afterwards, but it was raining hard so we ducked into the Museum of Natural History because it was the building over. This was were they filmed "Night at the Museum" so that was pretty cool.

So I'm not really a dinosaur person, or a bug person, or a marine person...so I guess I'm a rock person. The exhibit was pretty cool. And it made me want to wear more jewelry. See the three dudes top left? Most of the exhibit was donated by their families from their personal collections. Rock fanatics, holy snickerdoodle. I also saw the Hope Diamond, but there were a ton of people around it and bad lighting, so I didn't take a photo. You can read an article about it here though. My reaction when I saw it was that's small. Really small. I was expecting something the size of a small dinner plate. It was the size of a half dollar maybe. That's okay. I'm not wearing it any time soon.

The American History Museum is worth seeing. I got a history review course walking through the third floor, which covered American conflicts and how they shaped foreign and domestic policy. They had REAL artifacts like George Washington's and Andrew Jackson's uniforms, and muskets and swords and other various weapons, plus an actual helicopter that was in use until the '50's maybe.

They also had a chunk of the Berlin Wall which was neat and then a replica. We really didn't do much today because of the rain. What is rain? It's wet.