The West Wing.

So yesterday I got to tour the West Wing of the White House. It was something I just kinda lucked into I guess... Earlier this week, one of the staffers in Bennett's office told me that she found out about some availability for a West Wing tour this weekend and asked if I'd be interested in going.

Absolutely I was.

So yesterday, one of the other interns and I were able to wander around the halls of the West Wing. It was pretty awesome... The events didn't exactly get off to the best start, you see, it was raining off and on most pretty much all day yesterday, and even though it was barely sprinkling when I left, I ran into store near the metro station to quickly buy an umbrella. This put me in a pretty sticky situation as far as time was concerned. I didn't have the best luck with the metro, and the information I received regarding the tour made it very clear that if you aren't there on time, they start without you, and then you're just outta luck. So when I got off of the Metro and saw that "barely sprinkling" had turned into a torrential downpour, I felt somewhat vindicated. Problem was, I was quite behind schedule, so I had to run the 4 blocks or so down to the white house - so while the umbrella kept my head quite dry, the rest of me wasn't quite so lucky. Fortunately, when I made it there, they hadn't started the tour yet, so it all worked out in the end. We met up with our group, which consisted of us two interns, a Pentagon employee and his date, a State Department employee and his son, and our guide - a Bush Speechwriter - and we got on our way.

The tour was fantastic, we were only able to take pictures in a couple designated areas, so I'll just have to talk you through it until those pictures come up...

I was practically awestruck to walk through the hallways and look through into the rooms where some pretty important and pivotal decisions have been made throughout history. We started out the tour by checking out the dining room, then walking outside the Situation Room (which we weren't able to look in, we stood outside of it for awhile hoping that someone would walk in or out of it so we could peek in, but no such luck), then we went and peered in the Cabinet Meeting room. The tour was then supposed to go outside to the Rose Garden, but that portion was closed off due to the weather, so we got to peer outside the window at that part.

As we walked through it, the most surprising part of the West Wing to me was how small it was. Not just the wing itself, which isn't all that big, but the low ceilings and doorways, and the narrowness of some of the hallways, it all just had a very cozy feel to it, I really liked it.

Next up after the Rose Garden was the Oval Office.

This was one of the few exceptions to the "smaller than I expected" rule. It was a very impressive looking room, and like most of the other rooms, quite warm and inviting as well. Definitely the coolest part of the tour. We wrapped up the West Wing by looking at a couple of the other conference rooms, the waiting room, and then we walked outside to one of our few allowed picture taking places.

The Door to the West Wing waiting room.

The front entrance to the West Wing.

Okay, I'm still standing right in front of that door from the pictures above, that's the Old Executive Building behind me, but I wanted to get a picture of that Secret Service guy over my shoulder.
Here he is a little closer, check the guy out. Wouldn't want to mess with that guy and his awesome gun. (hopefully you can see the gun, it kinda blends in with his shirt, but yeah, it was awesome.)

Next we walked down to the Press Room, any time you see a press conference at the White House, usually with the White House Press Secretary, it's in this room.

It was another acceptable picture taking place.

Just sitting in the press seats - the kid chillin there with me was on our tour with us.

We then crossed the street over to the Old Executive Office Building. We got to see Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' motorcade parked out front, so apparently he was in the building. And yes, motorcades are awesome.

Old Exec Building.

The Old Executive Office Building was pretty cool, photography was allowed inside, but the pictures I got inside there were all pretty lame. We looked inside of the Indian Affairs room, which was pretty cool, as well as the office Richard Nixon used as president (which is now a conference room), as he was the only President who didn't use the Oval Office for anything other than ceremonial purposes. We finished up with the speech writing office, and that was the end of our tour.
I did snap the above picture from the window of the Indian Affairs Room. You can see the White house in the center, then the skinny red roof coming off of it towards the front of the picture is the top of the Press room portion of the West Wing, with the West Wing itself there in the bottom right corner of the picture.

So there you have it! Pretty awesome stuff, I must say.