Keeping on track with our “D week” for alphabet dating, we decided to also do a DC museums date!
We have lived outside of DC for about 3 ½ years and have visited a number of the museums. But DC is packed with so many cool things to see and do that even after 3 years we still have a long list of places that we still want to visit. Three museums that we kept hearing so many good things about were the Building Museum, Spy Museum, and Newseum. So we decided that we couldn’t put them off any longer and had to go see what all of the talk was about!
Building Museum
The first thing that you notice when you walk into the museum is that the building is huge! The main area of the museum is a massive, 15 stories tall room, which is empty and open except for several enormous Corinthian columns that are 75 feet tall and 25 feet around. The room and columns alone are worth a trip into the building.
There is usually an exhibit that is held in the middle of this room (last year it was a beach theme and this year it will be an igloo theme). Unfortunately, the museum was between exhibits when Em and I visited. The rest of the museum is made up of several rooms with various exhibits ranging from a hands-on, kid friendly, Play Work Build exhibit to a Housing & Home exhibit. There is a little something for everyone.
Spy Museum
The Spy Museum is one of the most popular museums in DC, so if you are planning a visit, make sure to pre-purchase your tickets to avoid a long wait. I have been to a number of museums and the Spy Museum’s content is truly unique. The museum caters to visitors of all ages!
There are a lot of really cool hands-on exhibits, but my favorite part was reading about all of the real life spies. It is mind blowing to think that people actually live those types of lives in real life and not just in the movies.
Newseum
The Newseum is massive. Since it covers the topic of news, there are a wide variety of exhibits. You can find anything from life-sized comic strips to a gallery with real pieces of the Berlin Wall (which is the largest display of unaltered portions of the wall outside of Germany). The best piece of advice that I have when visiting this museum is to make sure to give yourself plenty of time to explore.
The Newseum is definitely not lacking when it comes to staying current with the news. The museum has an exhibit featuring 80 different front pages of newspapers from around the world that are changed on a daily basis.
My personal favorite exhibits were the FBI and Pulitzer Prize Photographs Gallery. The FBI gallery had dozens of stories and actual artifacts from real life FBI cases. It made me extra thankful for all the hard work that the FBI and other departments do to keep us safe. The Pulitzer Prize Photographs were remarkable but also very sad. Many of the pictures captured tragic events from around the world and throughout history. It was really amazing how one picture could convey so many emotions and stories.
So now we have seen three more museums in DC, but are still far from experiencing all that the capital city has to offer. We love living in this area!
Here’s a list of all our alphabet dates so far!
– Alphabet Dating – A: Aquarium Sleepover with the Sharks
– Alphabet Dating – B: Basketball Game (Wizards vs. Sixers)
– Alphabet Dating – C: Circus (Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey
– Alphabet Dating – D: Dave & Buster’s
– Alphabet Dating – E: Eastern Shore / Assateague Camping
– Alphabet Dating – F: Florida
– Alphabet Dating – G: Golf Course Camping
– Alphabet Dating – H: Horse Race (The Preakness Stakes)
