The Institution, which runs 19 free museums and galleries (plus a zoo) in DC, is best approached from the gothic Castle on the Mall – inside is a visitor centre.

You may need more than one lifetime to see everything.

The newest Smithsonian museum is the National Museum of African American History and Culture – in the shadow of the 169-metre-high Washington Monument – which opened in 2016. Designed by British-Ghanaian architect David Adjaye, the museum traces a direct timeline from the start of the Atlantic slave trade in the 1400s to the Obama presidency, with exhibitions on African American culture, music and art.

To deep-dive into American art history, visit the Smithsonian American Art Museum, joined to the National Portrait Gallery through a lively covered courtyard. It has one of the country’s largest collections of 20th century New Deal art (riffing on Franklin D Roosevelt’s post-Depression economic plan – see how everything in DC intersects with politics?), with work by Edward Hopper, Georgia O’Keeffe and Willem de Kooning. But it’s the presidential portraits that people are here for. There’s a slightly dopey George W Bush, an abstract Bill Clinton and (with a long queue) a Hawaiian-flower-surrounded Barack Obama.

Okay. I have the basics covered. Now to become a modern, urban govster. Downtown is Govster Central – new mixed-use developments like CityCenterDC, which welcomes the capital’s first Conrad next year. We’ll lunch on maple syrup-drizzled chicken and waffles at Southern-inspired restaurant Succotash; or hang out at Eaton DC – the flagship property of the Hong Kong hospitality brand, which opens this month – to mingle with some of the city’s artists, journalists and activists.