Carving or fossil?

Another day discovering Washington. J took us to the Vietnam War Memorial - very striking and very sobering. 58000 names on the black marble - and of course, that doesn't include the Vietnamese, nor, I suspect, those who didn't actually die in combat, but later, of their wounds. Not to mention the immense physical and mental scars.
There were three veterans there, I think providing information as required. My generation, but like Peter May's father, I find it hard to believe that I'm that age! We also saw a troop of Asian schoolgirls, with colourful umbrellas and neat uniforms with a kilted skirt - Vietnamese? I didn't like to ask and am not good enough at distinguishing nationalities. They seemed pretty happy, and some of them waved and smiled and said 'hallo'.

On past the White House, glimpsed through the trees but probably easier to walk than to drive past, and Juliette dropped us off at the Natural History Museum. I was fascinated by the marine formations and creatures. Some of the fossils, like the example above, resemble the most imaginative and delicately-worked sculptures or jewels. Then we headed for the Hope diamond - WOW! - and the gemstones, so many of which are Brazilian.
From there to the Freer and Sackler Galleries, to take a look at Whistler's work and the gorgeous Asian collection, and finally, on to the Museum of the American Indian, which was equally fascinating - and where we lunched on supposedly Native American food (pretty good).

The original plan was to spend the afternoon at Dunbarton Oaks and meet a friend in a nearby tavern. Unfortunately, our late start rendered that impractical and our subsequent lack of organisation also lead to him and his wife getting stuck in traffic on their way to have supper with us at our friends' house, and having to abort that plan. We almost-Brazilians aren't very good at first-world organisation and planning.

Very pleasant evening with Juliette and David and the children, tempered by sadness that our holiday was drawing to an end.