The Capitol
www.aoc.gov
Metro: capitol south, on the orange and blue lines, or union station on the red line. Capitol south is closer.
Hours: 8:30-4:30, Monday-Saturday
Touring the Capitol is free. There are several ways to go about it. The least amount of effort involves showing up in the Capitol Visitors Center and getting in the walk up passes line. They hand out extra passes every ten minutes, so depending on the line, this could take awhile. But it doesn’t require any preplanning. Once you get the pass, you stick it on, get in the movie line and go on with your life. But you may get there at ten in the morning and not get passes till one in the afternoon. Another option is to reserve passes online. Once you get the confirmation email, print it out (make sure it has a barcode) and take it with you. Then you can get in the reserved passes line. This is handy because you have a least some choice in what time you can pick, and can plan around that. Both of these options will give you a tour with the red coats- the very nice people who work at the capitol. They wear- you guessed it- red coats or vests, and work everything from the movie line to actually giving the tours. You’ll be in a large-ish group and wear headphones to hear the guide. Most of them really like their job, and they’re chock full of knowledge. A clue about your passes- the time that’s on them is what time you get in line, not the time you actually go into the movie. Just to clarify.The third option is to call your congressman a little bit in advance- in the office I work in, it could even be the day before or the morning of really, but to be safe maybe call a couple of weeks in advance- and they’ll set you up with a tour. You will meet an intern in their office or maybe in the visitors center, and they’ll have your passes and everything ready to go. They’ll give a better tour- you’ll get to see at least one extra room the large tours don’t go into. I guess the fourth option is to be personal friends with a staffer or intern, in which case you’ll get a great tour.
Capitol tours take about an hour to an hour and a half. You get to watch a really cool fifteen minute film called E Plurubus Unum (which means Out of Many One, for those of you who aren’t Latin scholars or Classics majors). Its just a short intro, and gives you a little history while reminding you why America is so freaking awesome. They also picked really good score.
From the movie, you will either go with your red coat or your intern guide, and actually start touring. I’m not going to give you details, because you should just go on the tour and I don’t want to ruin it. I will tell you Rotunda is my favorite room. That’s it. Go on the tour.
Another reason to go with the Intern is they’ll bring you House and Senate Gallery Passes. You have to get these from a congressman. If you don’t go with an intern, you can go to the office itself and request some, but that would be an added step. Anyway, with the passes, you can go watch the Senate or the House in action, hopefully. Or maybe you can go look at a very pretty empty room. Either way, it’s a cool opportunity, one that probably won’t come up too often in life, unless you’re a congress member. Or an intern. Or a staffer. Once you get up there, you can stay for five minutes or five hours or however long you want. I would definitely recommend going to at least one of them, if your time allows.
There’s a couple of gift shops and a café in the CVC that is ridiculously overpriced and not that good.
A word on security- its ridiculous. No food or drink (with some medical exceptions- like being diabetic) is allowed at all. You will have to throw it away or they won’t let you in. Anything remotely pointy is also not allowed- cuticle scissors, knitting needles, etc. Really, all you need is your camera and wallet. That’s it. If you get thirsty, maybe you could buy a water bottle or a coke, and get over spending the two dollars for it. If you go into one of the galleries, you have to basically check anything with a battery- phones, ipods, cameras, car keys. Its like a coat check- they put your stuff in a little drawer or bin and give you a plastic card to claim it afterwards. They’re serious about security and security breaches, so don’t mess with them or think you’ll be the exception. You won’t.
The Capitol is a beautiful building, and should definitely be at the top of your list when visiting DC. If its not, I feel like you should probably question your level of patriotism, and you don’t want that, do you?
