That sounds impressive doesn't it? Don't worry, I'm aware and like to seem as high-class as possible. If you want to as well, then gosh darn it, go take a (very partial) tour of the White House. Despite there being a multitude of people engaging in their own self guided tours alongside my boyfriend and I, White House tours can be hard to come by. Especially if you're not from the Northern Virginia area. We got lucky and were given tickets by a family friend with some handy connections.
There are a couple different tours that you can take in and around/in the White House: the partial ground floor/basement and first floor tour (the one I went on), the garden tour, and the west wing tour. The first two of these tours can be purchased online, but are first come first serve and ya gotta get approval from "one's Member of Congress." Get em' while they last and if you can kind of deal. While the tour I went on is year-round, the garden tours only occur in October and April. Not to mention that all tours are susceptible to cancellation if some urgent government stuff pops up that the public can't be around for. Getting the vibe? We were lucky to have someone to hook us up with a tour, since it's clearly not like other free places to visit in DC (yes, it's free to tour the White House by the way)! It's the West Wing tour that's practically impossible to get, and few do, unless you have connections with the right people or already are the right people.
Understandably, the security approaching the tour is extensive. We approached a white tent with tons of Secret Service guys, intermixed with some armed police officers. Admittedly so, we did not find this tent very quickly. I am directionally challenged and proud! Okay, fine, I'm embarrassed of it most of the time, but my sweet, navigationally inclined boyfriend and I eventually found it with the help of Google maps and directions provided on the tickets/instructions. We were almost immediately held up by paperwork errors with my boyfriend's ticket info. This is around the time we lost the three other people we arrived with and would continue on without for the rest of the tour. No biggie for us though, since it was self-guided. Don't bother bringing a purse or bag either, they're not permitted. Just do what I did and stuff your unfairly tiny pants pockets (women need big pockets too and it needs to be addressed) so full that it looks like you have shoulder pads for your hips. Now, that's smart girl traveling for ya. After getting through all the security stations, and getting sniffed by a couple of dogs, we continued our walk until meeting a foyer that led into a long hallway that would guide us to the first viewing rooms of the White House.
Somewhere along the way, we determined the security stops to be never-ending, so when we found ourselves in this foyer, staring out the window to the back yard of the White House, we were surprised and had not had time to build up mental preparation. Once we exchanged looks of , "Oh, are we inside? We're inside the White House right now?," we began the progression down the brick hallway, illuminated with natural light from the gardens to our left. It felt so much like a museum that I quickly forgot it was a place where people have lived for centuries, and would continue to. Out in the garden, on the far left near one of the windows we had been peering out of earlier, was a small soccer goal. The kind you'd buy for kids nursing an early interest in sports. This felt like a sweet, normalized reminder that even though we'd never see the most personal part of this house, it was still that; somebody's house.
We began in the lowest level; the ground level or basement. Among the white brick walls were photographs of various presidents of the twentieth and twenty first centuries in the very rooms we were walking into, going about daily activities or shaking the hands of other powerful people (like Elvis, the only person who I can think of right now despite the many, many monumental people pictured with presidents in those photos). The rooms downstairs varied, many having been re-purposed throughout the different presidents terms and interior styles. Being the base level of the house, the rooms down there are some of the oldest.
Naturally, the room that caught my eye quickly, was one of the many libraries in the house. This particular one was filled with red upholstered, dark wood furniture, bookshelves on every wall, and a fireplace with a Georgia O'Keeffe painting above it of dark mountains. I heard an older woman whisper to her friend, very confidently, that all the books in this particular library were first editions. While this may be untrue, the idea intrigued me and I liked considering the possibility of it. It sounded like something pretentious that I would do if I had my own library room. (Update: This is TRUE! Confirmed by our super secret friend connection who was told by a super Secret Service member that works during tour times)!
Not until the first floor were we able to actually walk into the rooms, all of them in the basement having been roped off just enough to stick your head in and look around. Up the stairs, we entered the East Room first where I had my first "wow I'm in a really famous place" moment. The very notable portrait of George Washington hangs in that room.
Being that the house was modeled in the popular "round room" style of the 18th century, the rooms are all directly connected to one another, with few hallways. The Blue room presented the greatest views, looking out on the backyard of the house lawn, with the Washington Monument sitting high above in the distance. After the Green, Blue, and Red rooms, we entered our last room for the tour, the State Dinning Room, with Abraham Lincoln's portrait hanging, centered over the fireplace, big and bold, like many of the other massive portraits filling the walls of each room.
They're a big fan of statement pieces.
A co-worker of mine this summer told me she was disappointed by the tour. While this wasn't much of an encouraging sentiment to hear as someone very excited to be going on the tour at all, I understand what she meant now, but for very different reasons than what she described. She thought it was supposed to be more extravagant, but I wouldn't have gone on this tour with those expectations at all. It's not a European castle, so don't expect it to be one! It's styled similarly to many other big, expensive homes in the US built during that time period. The historical magnificence of the house is what's the most impressive anyway, and I think that's the way it should be. Imagining all the important feet that have walked in and out of those rooms was an important moment for my experience while there. Sure, it's a big house and doesn't have gold plated wallpaper or 13 acres of land for horse riding (cough cough Windsor Castle), but America didn't separate from England just to create a mini version of it. America's got it's own (kind of) modest version of rich people style.
My only small sliver of disappointment developed simply because of how little we were permitted to see of the house. I understood why, since we can't just wander around the most heavily guarded house in the country. But, I optimistically expected a little more. Despite this, it was still a resounding feeling to walk out of the North Portico, or the President's front door, onto the front lawn and see all the visitors standing behind the tall fence, many feet away (come one, I don't know how many feet. stop asking), observing the grand columns and manicured lawn of the house. We were on the inside of those gates, feeling real special, and who doesn't like to feel special?
