Day 4 - Exploring the Neighborhood (12-02-08)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MICHÉLE !!! ALL THE BEST FROM ALL OF US !!!

Tuesday started with a nice little walk not too far away from the hotel. Yeah! Through the sunshine, that caught the busy, hard-working neighborhood, we were basically walking just a few blocks down New Hampshire Ave. to get inside the Department of History at the George Washington University. There, Kenneth Bowling invited us to a journey to the early days of US politics, namely the First Federal Congress Project - a tremendously elaborate and ambitious venture carried out by a team of four. One of them needs to be mentioned explicitly: His colleague, who worked for Hillary R. Clinton's campaign! The team’s entire undertaking consists of 22 volumes, featuring personal letters as well as official correspondence, pointing out some of the most important actors, i.e. Jefferson, Washington, etc. We will meet up with K. Bowling on our last day (Monday) to visit Mt. Vernon together with a group of George Washington University students. We're already looking forward to that!

Sandwiches for everyone! We had the honorable mission to provide lunch also for our next speaker: Professor of American Studies and director of the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation, a real and popular specialist on D.C.'s architecture, especially the past and ongoing development of the Washington Mall. Not unmentioned shall remain the atmosphere that his two slide-projectors created during his more than interesting presentation. It felt like a funky flashback into the late 70's making us feel the nostalgia we all know from old fashioned college movies. Groovy.

On our way to the next exciting D.C. historic site, we faced a very familiar (Bavarian) spirit: Brewmaster's Castle. It is one of the most beautiful Victorian houses in Washington. It belonged to Christian Heurich, a German immigrant, who made a fortune with his brewery. Although the beer could not be tested on site, we learned that Christian Heurich, owner of the complex, was at one time the 2nd richest land owner in the city.

The next point of our schedule was a visit to the Anderson House, today the home of the much-debated "Society of the Cincinnati"

Think the day is over? HA! Think twice, there are always institutions in D.C. that are worth a visit. For example, the German Marshall Fund, just a few streets away. There, Harvard Ph.D. and M.A. Dr. John Glenn held a presentation (the first powerpoint presentation we saw) on transatlantic trends. The German Marshall Fund researches trends in European-American affairs. The discussion, that followed, brought up questions concerning energy supply in Europe as well as NATO-related topics. A broad array of issues has been mentioned that really proved that this visit is another very important landmark in our stay here.

Think the day’s over now? HA! Think three times. There is one more institution in our neighborhood which needs to be explored from the inside - the German Historical Institute (GHI). We all knew that Prof. Mauch used to work for the GHI but we didn’t expect the Second Blair House to also be the second home of Mr. Mauch. Currently, there’s an exhibition displaying how the Civil Rights Movement affected and was perceived in Germany, which Mr. Martin Klimke showed us through. Furthermore, the exhibition was followed by an inspiring discussion in the beautiful ballroom of the house. It is hard to imagine how happy we were to hear that we were invited to dinner by GHI. Who doesn’t like Thai food...?