Greetings from the National Mall

We spent nearly all of Sunday in DC, mostly at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, which we'd never visited before -- one of the many things Covid put off for us for nearly two years. We met Daniel and Cahaya outside near the Washington Monument and spent almost five hours exploring the museum, starting with the arts and culture galleries on the top floor and working our way down to the History Galleries, which were by far the most crowded. Some highlights for me were the music, film, and theater exhibits -- costumes from The Wiz, a handwritten score by Duke Ellington -- the entire excellent sports gallery, and the entirety of the historical exhibition, which has so many poignant items and detailed maps and documents about the growth of slavery. 

 

We were very hungry by the time we left the museum, so we took some pictures of the sunset behind the Washington Monument, then walked to the nearby food trucks, where we had a variety of burgers and sandwiches (there's plenty of veggie food at the Mediterranean and Mexican trucks). Then we walked back to our car, dropped Daniel and Cahaya off near their hotel, and stopped at the food store on our way home for some things so we can have a belated Christmas dinner with Paul's parents later this week. Then we tried to watch the Washington-Dallas football game, which we were even in the mood for after seeing pictures of Doug Williams winning the Super Bowl in the museum, but it was more of an embarrassment than a competition (teammates punching each other), so we're catching up on Graham Norton!