The Capitol building visit

On Saturday morning, the day after we arrived in Washington D.C., we went to the Capitol visit center to get a guided tour inside the building. We were all handed a headset so everybody would be able to always hear what the guide was saying.  Steve, our guide, took us to a room that was originally the main entrance of the building. Slaves built almost the entire building by pressing sand into bricks. 

It was the only room that didn’t burn down in 1814, and all the original stonewalls were intact. 
The whole building was very prestigious and chandeliers hung from the roof in almost every room. 

We entered a round room with a high ceiling that was painted with people from different times and on a banner it said “E pluribus unum” which means “out of many, one”. It was probably the most interesting room in the whole building. Steve told us about the building being divided into two houses, the Senate and the House of Representatives and in that room we should imagine an imaginary line crossing through that separated them. Abraham Lincoln was the one who decided to build that room, but interestingly enough, he was the only president to never step foot in the room. 

There were paintings of the history of America and especially how the Americans took the land from the Indians. That’s not how they portrayed it, though. Among the paintings were some of Pocahontas; one where she was protecting John Smith from being killed and one where she was being baptized so she would be able to marry John Ralph.

Steve said something interesting about the Lady of Freedom (she’s the woman on top of the Capitol building). What he said was that no statue can be taller than 19 feet because nothing should stand taller than freedom.

Even with the amazing tour of the building, what we noticed the most was all the asiens running around with high tech SLR cameras.