Museums, and Metro Madness

On Monday I visited the National Air and Space Museum. I spent most of my time in the air section, because I just enjoy looking at old aeroplanes. I was particularly interested in the exhibit about Orville and Wilbur Wright. At school, we were really only told the bare facts, that they were the first people to fly a self propelled aircraft, at Kitty Hawk, for a few seconds. It was really interesting to read about their family life and how they had been encouraged to have enquiring minds right from childhood. There was also information about their different personalities, and a lot of detail (of course) about all the work that was behind that first momentous flight.

I also loved Amelia Earheart's red aeroplane. I would have loved to learn to fly, but finances and poor eyesight prevented it.

Wednesday I went to the Musuem of the American Indian. I had thought that just meant the North American Indian, but actually it included those of South American as well. There was a lot of stuff I was already aware of, about the decimation of whole populations by introduced diseases and about the exploitation and marginalisation of various tribes, but also a lot of information about the resiliency of many of the people and the preservation of their cultures. In some ways, they weren't treated quite as badly as the Australian Aborigines - mostly they weren't forced to work as slaves for the whites - but they certainly weren't treated well either.

On my way home yesterday I got embroiled in the aftermath of a 2 train collision in the subway. The train I was on, and all others on that line, had to be stopped at Dupont Circle and the passengers taken by shuttle bus a few stations up the line to reconnect with trains on the other side of the accident. However, one bus does not equal one 6-car train, so the numbers of people waiting for shuttle buses was huge. I was lucky in being on one of the earlier trains, and only had to wait about half an hour for a bus. However, the bus took more than half an hour to cover the distance the train would have travelled in about ten minutes, so it took me an hour and a half longer than usual to get home.

The crowds of people queuing for buses were amazingly good natured, and there was a lot of joking amongst the African Americans which kept most of us amused. I felt a bit nervous when I first realised my train was not going to take me all the way home, but I soon realised that nobody else knew what was going on either, so I adopted a policy of following the crowd which worked well.