Chelsea & John

Yesterday John and I went to the National Zoo. We only saw about 1/4 of everything, and we were there for several hours. The only thing I didn't like about it was the screaming kids running around everywhere, especially in the panda exhibit. I thought they were the same pandas China gave to Richard Nixon, but they were replacement pandas. We did get to see at least one of the Giant Pandas (they're hard to tell apart) and take a picture.

We saw a cheetah. She sat there really quietly and chewed on her meat. The zoo lady said that cheetahs were the only big cats that didn't roar. Who knew?

I really liked the bird house and all the exotic birds. They had a lot of flamingos and a beautiful crane outdoors. The toucans made a noise that sounded like maracas.

One of the last things we saw were the elephants. They were really cool but their habitat was depressing. They sort of looked like they were in jail.

After the zoo we went to Whole Foods for some groceries and then to Tunnicliff's Tavern in our neighborhood for some pizza and microbrews.

I enjoyed the East Building more than the Hirshhorn. I don't really feel like writing about it in depth, but here are some pictures I took:

The buiding is a work of art in itself. It was designed by I.M. Pei.

A large Alexander Calder mobile takes up much of the space.

The museum has several Mattise cut out collages

Today I went to the Hirshhorm Museum and the East Building of the National Gallery.

I got to the Hirshhorn a little too early so I went to the sculpture garden across the street. I saw The Burghers of Calais and several other Rodan works, including Monument to Balzac. It's one of the DC artworks that I've been wanting to see - it was in Gardner's History of Art and my art history teacher talked about it all the time.

I really loved the Yoko Ono Wish Tree - I'm a big sucker for that kind of stuff. I've also always kind of liked Yoko Ono, maybe because no-one else does.

The works inside were good too and included many paintings, which I had not anticipated. Some were a little disappointing - they had a whole room dedicated to my least favorite 20th century artist, William De Kooning. They seriously did have a canvas that was just painted white and hung on the wall. I'm not really sure how I feel about this work, Video Flag.
In the adjourning room to Video Flag I watched a movie, "The Way Things Go," for almost half an hour. It was just a series of chemical and physcal reactions in a chain - sort of like a pointless Rube Goldberg Machine. After the Hirshhorn I continued on to the East Building of the National Gallery.