another day in DC

Today Kraig and I safely rode the Metro again into DC. So far, there are no problems with the Green Line- which is what we typically ride. Today, we went to the Holocaust Museum. Unfortunately we did not know that you have to get specific tickets to go through the main exhibit and that they tend to run out of them early in the morning. So, by the time we got there, the tickets were gone. The tickets are free- so we may try to go back and do this part of the museum on another day. We did go through some of the exhibits at the museum- one was all about Nazi propaganda and the way it was used to help the Nazis gain popularity and power. The propaganda used very strong imagery and strong words. It was definitely their main tactic to gain control. In the beginning- they just planted small little Anti-Jewish tidbits...then later- they showed newsreels of horrific things that they themselves had done- but put the blame on the Jews. In the beginning, their flyers spoke about the Nazis being for social harmony, change, and uniting their nation- things that sounded peaceful and hopeful to a country that was in bad shape after the first world war. It was kind of easy to see how people that were already down could be persuaded into believing this... so the exhibit was pretty interesting. Hopefully, we will get to go back to see the rest.
After we saw what we could see at the museum, we visited the Old Post Office Tower and Pavillion. It is near the national mall. It has a large observation tower with great views of the city. It houses the Congress Bells which were a bicentennial gift. The whole building is actually pretty cool- and it has a food court, some shops, and is air-conditioned! We were checking it out for when our friends come next week for the 4th.