Anywho, once upon a time, at the beginning of August, one of my classmates contacted us and told us that he could get us into the White House for a tour.
Be still my beating heart.
We had to provide a bunch of information: our full legal names, address, identification, social security number, blood sample, a brief essay outlining our understanding of the Constitution and how the government works, a list of our favorite presidents, and a brief training exercise on how to drop to the ground and cower in fear if something happened while on the tour.
Haha just kidding. We just needed to provide the first 4...although when I'm president...
The tour was amazing though! We went on August 29 and met bright and early to stand in line for 40 minutes. We were not allowed to bring any bags with us or cameras. Just our IDs and sparkling personalities.
Of course when you unleash a group of museum educators on a site such as the White House, there will be a lot of squealing, telling of historical facts, and other museum-ish behavior.
There were four checkpoints we had to go through to get into the actual building. The first two was a simple ID check to make sure we were on the list. The third one, we got sniffed by a dog to make sure we weren't packing any explosives on our beings. The fourth one we walked through a metal detector and were scrutinized by a pack of guards who get a kick out of telling tourists to do random things as they are checked (such as "stand on one leg").
But after that, you are there..,in the White House. It is so incredible and historic that you nearly miss all the secret service and the nice men with machine guns on the roof.
The rooms are huge in the White House. The pictures you can find do not do them justice. I got to see so many historic rooms and famous pieces of artwork. I stood on the same floors and rooms that these amazing men and women stood on. I did my best not to squeal and giggle. I got to see the famous paintings of presidents from George Washington to John F. Kennedy. It was amazing.
And then as soon as it had begun, it was over.
Oddly enough, they don't let you wander around the entire White House...bizarre. But as soon as we were outside, we pulled out cameras that we had stashed on our persons and began to take pictures of the exterior (that was allowed).
So close to everything! and yes, that man is wearing a USU shirt...it's nice to have reminders of home.
It was a wonderful experience, I hope to be able to go again before I am done with my program. However, the tours can be tricky because even if you register, they can be cancelled at a moments notice if there is a security problem, a press conference, or the first lady wants to have a tea party.
But it was so much fun and I am glad that I was able to finally go inside the White House.
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