Week 3 in D.C.

BY MALIA ALLISON ​With the government still shutdown for the majority of my third week, I became a dedicated tourist to Washington D.C. Sightseeing has become my new internship. Luckily, I came during a good time for events with MLK weekend filled with multiple marches including the Women’s March. There were large numbers of people in the city for all these events which made the few locations that were open, like the Holocaust Museum, very busy. Thankfully, for me and our lawmakers, Washington is easy to get around. I would personally thank Pierre L’Enfant for his grid system if I could because I have not yet been lost. The grid system of D.C. is one of the best things I have encountered in my travels because no matter where I am, I can look up to the Washington Monument to see what quadrant of the city I am in. Many streets were blocked off by large Army trucks, but everything is for the most part walking distance from my apartment. I am a block away from the Library of Congress and the Metro. Often, I walk to the National Mall rather than take the Metro because it is a nice 3 mile walk to the Lincoln Memorial. From the Capitol Building to the Lincoln Memorial there are endless monuments and usually open museums to stop at. The walk back to the apartment is not as nice, leisurely, and educational so I have opted for a Lim scooter on the way back East. I recommend using any scooter aps like Bird, Lime, or Lyft because its cheaper than taking an Uber but just as fast. For my third paper which is on monuments and memorials, I decided to see Washington D.C. like a true tourist. I rode one of the Hop On Hop Off buses to see as many monuments in one day and listen to some helpful commentary. All the tour guides I interacted with were incredibly knowledgeable about the history of landmarks and the city that I could not have gotten simply walking around on my own. You would think after sitting on the Lincoln Memorial for the third time in a week and reading an entire book about the National Mall, I would be, first, bored of seeing the Lincoln Memorial but also know what the tour guides would tell me.  That was not the case at all. Although I am primarily alone on my adventures throughout the city, it’s been fun having no agenda or other people preventing me from seeing what I want. My only mistake so far has been going to the Holocaust Museum and Arlington Cemetery by myself on consecutive days. The Holocaust Museum, however, was one of the most powerful and impactful museums I have had the privilege of visiting. And since today, as I am finishing writing this, is Holocaust Memorial Day I thought I would write more about it. I have never walked out of a museum feeling heavy before like at some point throughout the museum, weights were placed on my shoulders. I think that is why I like the museum so much. In my research of museums and memorials, authors highlight how exhibits should teach visitors about the topic, but productive exhibits empower visitors to do something. USHMM did not do that in an overtly verbal way, but by stating the facts artistically and plainly. After walking through a freight train that used to carry hundreds of prisoners to death camps and a recreated Auschwitz barrack, I thought I had reached the climax of secondary emotional trauma, but then I walked into the shoe room. I ended up writing about the shoe exhibit in the USHMM for one of my papers because it was my favorite exhibits I have seen in D.C. so far. It is a simple room covered in heaps of shoes from Jewish prisoners who were stripped of their belongings before being sent to gas chambers.  The simplicity of the room highlights the sheer number of shoes and let the visitors realize the significance of the shoes on their own without much context. After writing my paper this week on memorials, I recognized the parallels between USHMM and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Both are simple but inventive spaces for reflection and restitution. However, USHMM goes beyond educating and commemorating to empower action to all its visitors.