{"id":1061,"date":"2010-08-22T02:32:21","date_gmt":"2010-08-22T02:32:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pedrozaplace.com\/blog1\/?p=1061"},"modified":"2018-08-21T03:00:44","modified_gmt":"2018-08-21T03:00:44","slug":"washington-dc-the-white-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johnpedroza.com\/blog1\/washington-dc-the-white-house\/","title":{"rendered":"Washington DC: The White House"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The corner stone for the White House was laid in 1792, but it wouldn’t be until 1901 when it would get it’s official name. It was then that someone asked Theodore Roosevelt about the place and he said “oh, it’s just a big white house…” The name stuck and here we are, or were I guess.
\nGetting to the White House is relatively easy. Luckily, you can ask any local and they know where it is and can tell you how to get there (and if they can’t they they have some major direction problems).
\nWhile getting to the White House is easy, getting inside the White House is not. Most of my pictures as you can see are from far away. One of my favorite pictures I took was from up top of the Washington Monument looking down onto the White House (I wondered if the guards could see me up there):
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\nHad I not gotten into the White House it wouldn\u2019t have ruined the trip for me, but I do think that the White House is an iconic image of Washington DC. Despite all the tour guides calling it \u201cyour White House,\u201d you just can\u2019t go up and ring the door bell and ask to be let in. There are a lot of bells connected to the White House, but trust me you don\u2019t want to hear them. To get into the White House you are going to need an invitation.
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\nInvitations are free but unfortunately, I don\u2019t know any members of the Presidential family and so getting a Presidential Invitation was out of the question. The next best thing was to get a Congressional Invitation to the White House. To get a Congressional Invitation you need to be recommended by one of your US Congressional leaders. Like every US citizen (if you are not a US Citizen you have to be recommended by your US Ambassador) I have three of these people (2 Senators and 1 Representative) and so about 6 months before we left I wrote to all three. I sent them my request along with the full names of everyone in my party, addresses, DOBs, Social Security numbers, and a description of what valid form of picture ID we were going to use (in our case California issued driver licenses, children under 5 do not need a picture ID). I followed up regularly with my Congressional leaders\u2019 offices to see how the progress was going, but was ultimately told I wouldn\u2019t know anything until at least 2 weeks before we left. As it turned out the first Senator I wrote to lost my paperwork, the second Senator tried, but was not able to get a spot, and ultimately 10 days before we were about to leave our Representative Jerry Lewis got us an invitation. This to me was funny because our two Senators are Democrats (the same party of the President), but our Representative is Republican. Anyhow, soon enough we got our invitation in the mail.
\nNormally to get into the White House you have to be a group of 10 or more people. We were only a group of 4, so our Representative put us together with another family named Flynn (don\u2019t know them at all). The paper we were given had this name on it and a confirmation code. We were told to bring the paper with us at our appointed time and we could go on our tour. All good except for the fact that at 5:30 EST the day before our tour we lost the paper we were supposed to give to the SS (Secret Service). Lucky for us, we don\u2019t live in EST, we live in PST. So even though Representative Lewis\u2019 Washington DC office was closed, the Redlands, CA office was still open. Jerry Lewis\u2019 staff was very helpful to us. The Redlands office blackberried the Washington DC office, which then emailed the White House, which then put us on a list for the Secret Service and so we were still allowed in. Talk about cross-country teamwork!
\nTo start the tour you have to find the General Sherman monument.
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\nThis is actually across the street from the White House. The somber mood of General Sherman on his horse I think denotes the seriousness of the entire security process. As if getting back-grounded wasn\u2019t enough you must also get booked. Oops, I meant screened, but having seen people get booked I wouldn\u2019t say it was much different. You are not allowed to bring anything that doesn\u2019t fit in your pockets and your pockets better not contain anything illegal or you will be escorted out by several people with Colt 45s. When it comes to the White House you also have to know that you are not allowed to bring in any recording device. This was kind of funny to me because they allowed me to bring in my cell phone which clearly had recording capability, not that I had any motivation (first tour I ever had where the docents were fully loaded) to use it inside.
\nSince I wasn\u2019t able to take pictures inside the White House I have some pictures I got from an archived President Bush website(during his administration there were no tours) and a scan of our tour map:
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\nYou enter the White House by descending into the East Wing. I took this photo from outside the White House looking at the East Wing:
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\nThe East Wing is where the First Lady\u2019s offices are. I am not sure what business goes on in those offices, but her staff was very busy going in and out of locked doors. This was interesting to me because Michelle Obama was in Spain when we were visiting. I wonder if her staff doesn\u2019t get to travel with her or if it is like a Broadway production where there is more than one cast. If so, I have to say the local cast was very engaged in their work.
\nAfter walking through a long hallway we found ourselves under another underground hallway (a lot of Washington DC is underground) that lead to the China Room, Library, and Vermeil room. It also lead to the West Wing (the executive offices of the President), but we were only allowed to go half way down the hall. Even though I didn\u2019t get to see the West Wing I learned that the current Press Room used to be an indoor pool. I also learned a little trivia about the Vermeil room. The Vermeil room houses portraits of 20th century first ladies. The most striking of which I think has to be of Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Onassis Kennedy (she really liked accumulating those names didn’t she?):
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\nAs interesting as the portrait was, it was the name that was more interesting to me. Apparently, vermeil is when you take silver and dip it in gold. It makes the gold even shinier (I didn\u2019t even know that was possible). This Vermeil room is filled with a lot of objects decorated in this manner, hence the name. Heading back into the hallway a Secret Service guy told me a story of President Obama setting up a ping pong table in the hallway and playing an epic ping pong tournament (he wouldn\u2019t tell me who won).
\nGoing up a well worn marble staircase, we entered into the East Ballroom.
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\nThe painting of George Washington is of course the famous one Dolly Madison saved in the battle of 1812, and consequently is the oldest thing original to the White House. The piano is a Steinway and was donated 1938.
\nAfter going through the East Ball Room, you get to walk through the Green room, the Red Room, the State Dining Room (where they get daily fresh flowers), and the blue room:
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\nThe Blue Room was my favorite room of the house. According to the Secret Service it is the Obamas\u2019 favorite room too. President Martin Van Buren was responsible for it\u2019s color when he first painted the walls in 1837.
\nTo go through the main floor rooms, you get to go through the Cross Halls.
\n\"The<\/a>
\nThis particular view of the Cross Halls to me is cool because it is the one that they always show when the Secretary of State is going to meet a foreign leader.
\nAfter the tour and we were outside again I was allowed once again to touch my cell phone and so I took these photos at the North door.
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\nUndoubtedly the closest picture I will ever get to take of the White House. Anyhow, the tour was awesome. Definitely, one of the highlights of our trip.
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\nBTW, if for some crazy reason the President does read this I think I would make perfect fit for a White House Staffer:
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\nSee what I mean, now all I need is one of those red A pass cards and I will be all set!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The corner stone for the White House was laid in 1792, but it wouldn’t be until 1901 when it would get it’s official name. It was then that someone asked Theodore Roosevelt about the place and he said “oh, it’s …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10371,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,29,1,1492,31],"tags":[280,423,455,494,670,699,885,932,939,940],"class_list":["post-1061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-parks","category-travel-tips","category-uncategorized","category-world-capitols","category-world-travel","tag-dc","tag-house","tag-jerry","tag-lewis","tag-president","tag-representative","tag-tour","tag-washington","tag-white","tag-white-house"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpedroza.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpedroza.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpedroza.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpedroza.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpedroza.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1061"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpedroza.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10374,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpedroza.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1061\/revisions\/10374"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpedroza.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpedroza.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpedroza.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpedroza.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}