| WASHINGTON DC |
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| We bused it from New York down toWashington DC on a wonderful Greyhound Coach. The driver of which I believe was female, though it was difficult to tell. Anyway we arrived safely at Joss' cousin Sandra's, house for a very much needed and welcomed shrimp supper. Both of us were absolutely knackered on Monday, the antics of Saturday night catching up. We spent a couple of hours in the morning sitting by a lake swimming and sunbathing. It was beautiful, completely silent and incredibly picturesque, something I think we both needed. Anyway we swum, wrote ptostcards and generally chilled out until we were picked up for lunch and a shower. After lunch we went shopping to a factory outlet store (Surprise surprise, I here you shout!!) It was enormous, huge, gi-bloody-gantic. Every name, brand, food outlet! Gap, Timberland, H&M, Dockers blah blah. It could have been expensive especially in the Timberland store where I spotted some rather fantastic pink boots for $41.00 with another 10% off. Unfortunately because they were factory seconds there wasn't a complete pair in the same shade of pink, they all varied. How pissed of was I? I bought some bits and we wandered around. Somewhere definately to recommend. |
| Tuesday was tourist day and we did it in style. The DC Duck tour. It was absolutley hysterical and a brilliant tour. We saw where everthing was that we wanted to see more later and got some brilliant Quackers to irritate the population of DC once we finished the tour (To your right Miss J Drummond displaying fore mentioned Quacker) We did the Air and Space Museum in the afternoon, well half of it we both got bored so tottered off across the Mall to see if Georgey Boy was in the big white building. Couldn't tell but got some pics of us looking like tourists outside the rather imposing irons railings. The Whitehouse was not really what I imagined it to be, it's a hell of a lot smaller. By this stage in the day we had both been a bit down and alcohol was required. Hard Rock Cafe, here we come! and did. 4 large cocktails later we managed to negotiate the Metro back to Springfield. |
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| Wednesday was Arlington Cemetory. Very very very large place and as you can imagine a little eerie. The JFK grave and memorial was interesting, not half as big as I had thought it would be. We managed to catch the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Solider. A little OTT. The guards walked as if they were Moonwalking forwards (think about it) and the actual change of guard went on for longer than I think they actually stand guard. Anyway it was interesting and a very beautiful monument. |
| JFK's GRAVE |
| The Kennedy Memorial Area |
| By Thursday we finally managed to get up the Washington Memorial. That was excellent, the views amazing. It was the anniversary of 9/11 so all the flags around the capital were at half mast. It was quite difficult to believe that it had been two years, especially as we had been at Ground Zero the week before and it is now a huge building site full of noise and movement. |
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| The flags around the Washington Memorial on 09/11 |
| In general I was quite surprised by DC. It was quiet and peaceful buit with very little to do if you weren't into museums and galleries. Compared to New York it was like a ghost town. The public transport system is useless to rely on. The Metro stops are no where near any of the main attractions and they are so spaced out. We saw an FBI convoy one day surrounding a limo. That was very exciting if not a litle unnerving. Big trucks with men in the back with big guns and of course sunglassses.It looked like something out of Men in Black. For some unknown reason everybody seems to run up and down the Mall at lucnhtimes and they can't run. It must be something about people in DC, they can not run!!! They either looked camp or did this funny waddling type of jog or tottered along at a ridiculous speed sweating buckets. Something should be said! |
| More pics coming |