Spy Museum +...

Today we set off first thing on the Metro for the Spy Museum. B said he was looking forward to the escalators, & although he balked a couple of times, he & C set up a system of counting before walking onto an escalator that really did the trick. B even carried Rufus himself on the last leg of escalators. On the way to the spy museum we walked through Chinatown, where Rufus stopped to have a photo op with the beautiful gate...

The long-awaited spy museum was pretty cool. B was rather worried about being able to memorise his alias upon entry, so I didn't bother to do one for myself & just memorised his chosen "cover"... although it wasn't as big a deal as they made it seem. You could try to pass a quiz when you left, to see if you were arrested at the border or not :) C did it while B & I were in the gift shop & they let him leave, but he was too suspicious to be allowed into the country again :) :) But I'm getting ahead of myself...

There was a lot of hands-on stuff at the beginning, which B really liked although it was pretty crowded & you had to have the patience to wait until one of the interactive displays was free. Crawling through the duct was as cool as advertised & B did it several times. His patience lasted until about halfway through the museum & then he was ready to just move on to the gift shop, although a display about he Enigma Code & Alan Turing did catch his attention again for a bit. I really enjoyed the pop culture parts, & even B was charmed when they showed some Rocky & Bullwinkle in one room, since we are big fans... Here is B's take on the spy museum, in his own words:

The spy museum was awesome! My favorite things were: The thing where you could go through the duct and spy on people and the gift shop.
After a lunch at the spy city cafe we sat down and sunbathed by the hotel pool. And that’s pretty much what happened today.



Actually, after lunch we went to a little science museum nearby & enjoyed exhibits on the environment, DNA, & genetics. The photo above of Rufus & Einstein are from this museum, a part where you had to guess how much DNA you had in common with various animals & plants :) Rufe was very pleased to have had his photo taken with the great scientist...

B not only sunbathed by the pool after getting back to the hotel, but had a nice swim. We made an attempt to go to a nearby Chinese restauraunt for dinner, but B was tired & the OCD overtook him & sent him into a fetal position... then we tried take-out, but the cigarette smoke in the take-out area got my asthma going & I got dizzy. So poor C sent us limping back to the hotel & brought the food to the hungry masses. It was a weird feeling, not to be able to stay somewhere I wanted to be, but it gave me a sense of what B must experience when he gets overwhelmed by the OCD or sensory overload, so I guess it wasn't entirely a wasted experience. C didn't mind getting the food for us, & we had a quiet evening together in our room, playing pokeman, attempting to watch a Disney Channel movie (but it was too scary for B), reading more of "Coot Club" to help B get to sleep. Tomorrow- off to the Lincoln Memorial, Hirschorn, & any other places of interest in between...