exploring the world

Had a wonderful oppurtunity to visit the Museum of Fine Arts couple of weeks back. The Oil on Canvas paintings made during the renaissance era, the sculptures of Rome, the various portrayals of the Virgin, the Pyramids of Egypt and the masks of Africans were spectacular to say the least. Now I can confidently say that I have picked up a thing or two about art and architecture. For example, the mummies - I can differentiate between the mummy of a regal deceased vis-a-vis any other rich person;how the mummifying process transcended after romans captured egypt etc.
Last week, I also had another oppurtunity to tour the DC. We were fortunate to get into the Whitehouse gardens - the tulips were breathstaking and we could still spot a cherry blossom or two though most of the blossom was gone when we reached the DC. I had a lot of deja vu looking at the various memorials since the memorials reminded me of many other buildings that I have seen. Generally speaking, a lot of memorials and other buildings in DC and New York have hevily borrowed from the Greek Parthenon (with its doric / ionic / corinthean columns). Jefferson's memorial is a pantheon domed one; Lincoln's is a doric temple...Wish I need to re-read The fountainhead -just concentrating on the architecture part and cutting the objectivism crap.