Spies and Bogans

The weekend was cold, wet one day and sunny the next. Where the hell is spring?? We decided to go to the Holocaust museum rather than stay inside. Unfortunately we couldn't get into the museum. It gets so busy that you have to book during peak season or take the chance on getting one of the limited tickets on the day. We missed those tickets. Guess we'll wait until winter when there's no tourists :0  There is a sign outside the museum - makes you think very hard. If you can't read the small yellow words...
The next time you witness hatred
The next time you see injustice
The next time you hear about genocide
THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU SAW



So instead we wandered off to the International Spy Museum which was busy as expected. It was quite interesting and I am tempted to go back in quiet season so I can take my time to read and and look longer. The museum covers spy tradecraft, spies during the world wars and cold war era, lots of artefacts and has some exhibits back to the US civil war and biblical days. The museum has good activities for kids as they follow a mission and do things as they wander around. Some interesting artefacts are shown below.

The tree stump with a 'bug' was placed by the US intelligence in Moscow in the 70's to eavesdrop on military radar and communications of a nearby Soviet missile system. Pigeons were used to carry cameras to photograph ground area or to carry messages.

You would all know about the WWII German encryption machine, Enigma, recently seen in the movie The Imagination Game. While I have seen one of these machines before, it still captures my attention having studied its crypto coding algorithms and mechanical architecture. 

The museum also has a fabulous history and lots of artefacts on the most famous spy of all - James Bond 007. I'm a huge Bond fan and would love to return to completely absorb all the history. There were cars, Jaws' steel teeth, the shark, cars, costumes, bombs, missiles and other technology from the movies. And a photo with the Bond below was irresistible.

Now, the other photo, I'll give you one guess at why this intelligence agency crest caught my attention. It's for the Main Intelligence Administration RUSSIA (or GRU). Seriously, can you believe the Bat symbol is in their crest !!

 

Now you're wondering what Bogans have to do with this post title. We stopped by the Shake Shack (burger joint) to get a bite to eat. The counter guy asks if we are Australian and we said yes. He then asks if we are from Bogan? We both looked at each other and were going arrrh, uummm...so I said what, did you just say bogan? He said yeah. Well I said no, a bogan is like a (struggling to find the words an American would understand), like a dead-shit or a dag !  Not sure if he understood but he laughed. Maybe I should have said a Walmart customer. He said oh my god, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you, there were Australians in here yesterday and they said they were from Bogan. We were all confused but safe to say, we said we were NOT bogans and we weren't offended. We had a great laugh over it. At first I wondered if he was referring to Bogan Gate (NSW) which was made famous in Dec 15 by a kid making a you tube video on his town. But apparently not. Who knows, maybe the Australians had said Brisbane and he thought they said bogan. 

 

We took a day trip to Great Falls Park where the Potomac River provides some spectacular powerful falls. It's about half hour drive away and VERY popular. Note the flood pole - I can't imagine how it would look with water up that high. There are several lookouts, a great area with lots of hike trails, picnic areas and you can take your dogs !! A canal was built alongside the river - the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal back in the late 1700's to stimulate trade. The C&O canal has a 184 mile bike path (from DC up to north Maryland) so we plan to ride this in segments and check out many of the historical sites of interests. There is another path that links all the way to Pennsylvania. You can view the falls from both the Virginia and Maryland sides. Kayakers play in the falls and we saw a few bravely paddling the rapids.

 

We have met a few more neighbours now. To make it easy, I remember there names by Norman Gunstan, Kevin Rudd and John Howard. Can't think of any for the wives but this is a good start. We have also started watching Outlander after many recommendations from friends. And we decided to have a go at 'Park Runs'. Well we have an exciting week ahead so you will have to wait to see what's in store when the next few blogs get posted.