Third day – farewell with a flourish

In the morning, Election Day in Brazil, I was excited to see if some newspaper reported on the election. Yes, Washington Post noticed. On the first page, it was Dilma happy. I think that report is superficial because they reported about Dilma only. They didn´t tell about the other candidate. But most interesting is that they commented that Brazil will receive the World Cup and Olympics and Brazil will be giant. So, I am an optimist, but I think if Brazil wants to be a developed country, we have a long way to go.

Continuing our travel, I remembered that I read a text about the Library of Congress and I would like to visit, but I didn’t know the address.

But, coincidentally, the metro stopped close by the Library. When I saw the building, I thought “What is this?” and I went to the front of the building and I read “Library of Congress”, the biggest library of the world!

First, all museums in Washington offer guided tours and are free. Second, these guided tours are like a history or art class. Third, they are unforgettable.

The Library of Congress is the biggest library of the world and it is the oldest cultural institution of the USA, inaugurated in 1800.

The Library of Congress has more than 144 millions items, available in 470 languages, 61 million manuscripts, the biggest collection of rare books in North America, including a draft of the Declaration of Independence, the Gutenberg Bible (one of the four perfect ones that exist), newspaper from the last 3 centuries, 500.000 micro movies, 4,8 million maps and 13.7 million images, including art pieces. Wow!!!

The famous Gutenberg Bible is on exhibition and the guide spent a lot of time explaining its importance. It is the first printed with a press with movable type. Gutenberg spent five years producing it.

The complete copy of this Bible has 1282 pages.

Besides, the rare Gutenberg Bible, the collection includes the famous Red Book of Carl G. Jung, known as Liber Novus, which is the manuscript of 205 pages written by the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung, between 1914 and 1930 period. It was not published or presented to the public until 2009 because heirs of Jung did not allow access because misunderstanding in 1913 with Sigmund Freud who Jung worked for 5 years.

I am astonished with the quantity of rare items this collection saves, including the first maps produced of big travels, when people didn’t know America yet and Europe was the center of the Universe.

I will come back to finish my third day in Washington D.C