Inside Activity Time: Air Conditioning and Culture for Cheap Oh My!
It's too hot to be outside, SO INSIDE you shall go. And where to? Turns out that DC is quite the cultural destination with over 10,000 museums (give or take a few) and you should go to all of them, and you have time to because August is hot and boring. What's more, super expensive museums, like the Newseum, are offering discounted tickets in August leaving you NO excuse not to go inside and get cultured.
You read that right: the Newseum is on sale. Tickets are normally 20 bucks -- an obnoxious price considering that most museums here are free -- but they are half off ($10 for those of you who can't do the math) for the entire month of August. All you have to do is mention "WTOP" at the Newseum ticket desk or purchase tickets here and wellah, cheap tickets to one of DC's best museums!
Ah, but wait, the International Spy Museum is also in on the whole cheap-tickets-in-August business. DC, Virginia and Maryland residents (you may need some proof of this) get in for $6 after 6PM. Normally, admission to this museum comes at the obnoxious price of $20, so this is definitely worth taking advantage of as well.
And let's not forget, the Corcoran is FREE on Saturdays until August 29. This leaves you only three more Saturdays to take advantage of this offer!! The exhibit on display now is William Eggleston. He took some photos of everyday objects and they were so good that they called it art and put in a museum. Go and stare, and even if you think that you so could have taken the photos, yeah no, you couldn't have.
Phillips After 5 is also an awesome museum destination for the summer, as is the Freer Gallery of Art. You have to pay for the After 5 events, but it's well worth it. For $12 (the cost of regular admission to the collection) you get an interesting combination of art, jazz, food, and film. The Freer Art gallery offers lots of great programming, including the Asia Trash! Film series (read: campy, silly, slightly scary, definitely off-beat Asian films) Thursday nights through August 20.
There are thousands of other interesting museums in DC, including the newly remodeled American History Museum, the National Building Museum, which has an nifty exhibit about the geographic foundations of DC for all you urban planning nerds out there, the Hirshhorn Museum, featuring cool modern art, and the National Portrait Gallery, which boasts a great collection and rotating special exhibits.