Washington DC

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A great sigh of relief accompanies my first few steps in Washington DC, Greyhound buses are really not designed for someone who could give Hagrid a run for his money in an 'Eclipse the sun' competition. I literally had to sit in the foetal position half on half off my seat, my spine is now bent beyond recognition (the T4 - T3 region for those Chiro's reading) i drag my left foot and have no feeling down my right hand side, cheers loads Greyhound. In fact it wasn't even the corporate monster that is Greyhound that was to blame, it was the selfish bitch in front and her little 60 year old sidekick. They had a combined height of 4 ft frig all and about an acre of leg room, they say give up the better seats for the disabled, im not saying im disabled but im not kidding i pretty much had to sit in the aisle for 8hrs. I would have given up a priority seat if they needed it!!! Anyways ... The intrepid explorers have reached the capital city of the U.S of A ready to bathe in the history dreched, politically soaked, decision making epi-centre of the worlds biggest superpower. I dont know about Liam but i am ready for a head to head debate with a certain George 'double-ya' Bush about his war on/of terror or (much more likely) this mornings episode of 'Barney the Dinosaur'. Heres the thing, its not just the dim yet strangly entertaining Georgie Porgy that has resided in this suit and briefcase metropolis, other "greats" have kicked back and watched cartoons in one of the most recognisable cribs on the planet. Who could forget the late great and ultimate trend setting president big Abe Lincoln, founding father of the chin-strap beard. Or how about the most powerful perv in American history, sly ol'Billy Clinton. We've all heard the cigar/Monica/black dress/stain story, probably not the crowning highlight of his polital career. I could sit here and go on and on about American history/presidents for at least a whole quarter page paragraph but i wont ill just get on with our stay in D.C.

What is there to do in Washington? good question, i was thinking the same thing. Theme parks? No. Waterparks? Nope. Theatre? Probably, Lincoln got shot in one so yeah probably. Sports? No idea. For a place reeking of history the answer is simple: monuments, museums, memorial stuff done. Having been here before i had seen a few of the main things but trust me there is a monument or statue dedicated to some Tom, Dick or Harry on every street corner so it wasnt just a case of me following Liam around saying stuff like "maaaaate im bored, whens it time to eat? maaaaaate ive seeeeeen that. Maaaaaate shall we go watch TV? Maaaaate its just a house thats white c'mon lets go". Visiting these things and places and then trying to recount them to you, the faithful readers (mother and friends) is difficult. I dont want to just write a chronological list of everything we have seen, purely because that would be boring and the pics alone do that. However this is, afterall, a journal of sorts and journals are built around some sort of timeline structure, therefore if it does get boring just grin and bear it, it'll soon be over.

Getting off the bus was great and already we were well psyched about D.C but we were also well tired. The last thing i wanted was a chatty taxi driver trying to earn himself a bigger tip through pointless small talk. Unfortunatly that is exactly what we got. He starts off with the usual chatter "where you guys from?", now from experience with Americans and their woeful knowledge of geography its best to keep it simple. Its no good steaming in with "Cornwall boss, know un do e?". All you will get is "O .......Kay" or "what?" as if you're speaking martian or welsh. So we reply in unison, with a dash of boredom and more than a sprinkle of fatigue "England". Hoping that'll be that i turn my attention to the area surrounding the bus station ... Shithole. Then comes a question ive grown to hate (its only benn 3weeks!) "where abouts in Engerland?". Cornwall is the immediate answer he recieves but of course he doesnt have a clue where that is, so after 10mins of saying things like "The Southwest", "underneath Wales" and "the sticky out bit at the bottom that kinda roughly points towards the states" the driver claims he knows the exact spot. Phew convo over drive on please. Not so, the following quote cost our driver his tip and almost his life "so you guys are basically right next to Manchester". Oh pigging dear.

After a seriously deep sleep, snores and all (Liam) we awoke and readied ourselves (very slowly) for a day of sightseeing. Unfortunately (although i was secretly happy with this) it was proper raining Garfield's and Lassie's. The downpoor eventually ceased to be but most of the day was gone, so indiana and shortround trotted around the downtown area for an hour and then popped into the White House information centre. You should have seen us, eyes wide and smiles vast, we thought we were going to be getting tickets for a tour around el presidente's digs. Oh no, that would be to easy. To go on a White House tour (if you're a British Citizen) you need some sort of application or letter from the embassy. It was hard enough for me to get into the country full stop so the chances of getting a tour of the White House were poor to say the least. So that was that idea shot to shit.

With the weather still doing awesome impressions of Falmouth in the winter, the following day we decided to visit one of the many free smithsonian museums. So accompanied by a german guy called seb (Hallo Seb, dank für die Nachricht auf dieser Stelle. Erbärmlich um die Verspätung im Journalzugang sind wir beschäftigter Sehen viele Sehvermögen gewesen und Trinken von vielen Bier hofft, dass Sie die Erwähnung genießen, die Sie in diesem Zugang erhalten.) we set off to the National Air and Space museum. It was ok. They had a piece of moon rock ... oh sorry i mean a slither of rock that could have been anything. I still fingered it though, felt like i was molesting the cosmos! The place would be amazing if you're into air and space travel but im not and niether is Liam. They had pretty cool replica's of nuclear warheads and the original capsules the Americans "apparantly" went to the moon in (wikipedia moonlanding and conspiracy theories... while you're there look up 'Paul is dead', not related in the slightest but interesting. Anyway...). The museum is situated around a place called the Mall, this is not a shopping Mall, its a stretch of grass/parks/memorials between the Lincoln Memorial and the Capitol Building with the Washington Monument roughly in the middle. Its an impressive area, looking at the buildings it is clear that they were built as a show of power rather than practicality. The Buildings which include the National Archive's, Museums etc are huge grey structures with few windows, Seb likend the buildings to Hitlers image of Germany under the Third Reich, I know jack about the subject so .... moving on.

Eventually the clouds gave way to a brilliant blue sky and bright sunshine. This would be the day we'd embarke on the hike of all hikes, around the Mall and up to the Arlington cemetery. This is going to be one of those time where i pretty much just list what we did. Sorry, just scan read it and ill let you know if im about to say something interesting! We start the day off by missing a 9 o'clock guided tour of the monuments, poor start, but we like our freedom so we left on our own at 11 ish. First it was a stroll down to the White house for some pic opportunities, no sign of Bush, but we did try to antagonise a few snipers on the roof, they didnt open fire. From there it was over to the Washington Monument, because we didnt get up early enough we missed our chance of getting to the top, not to bothered, seen one view you've seen em all. We attempted to walk over to another memorial opposite the White house but never made it because of a "soccer" game, it was by no means Premiership standard, infact if i played i would have stood out as a superior player and im well shit. Crossing over a road or two we come to the WW2 memorial/fountain, then its a short walk down mirror lake and to the Lincoln Memorial. The Lincoln Memorial is my fave, not because he was an inspirational leader who completed so many amazing things during his time, but because of the episode of 'The Simpsons' when Lisa seeks advice but there are to many people around Lincoln so she goes to the Washington memorial and Washington has a go at because she went to Lincoln first blah blah blah you need to have seen the episode really so ill shut up. From there it was a 20min walk to the Arlington cemetery, dont really know what to say about that place, there were a lot of graves. You dont really visit a cemetery unless you have loved ones there, its not as if we were posing next to the tomb stones with big ol' grins on our face. Although i think we got some footage of the JFK burning flame thing. Next stop Iwo Jima, its a lot bigger than i imagined it to be, in truth im not sure what the whole thing is about, i could read up on it or i could watch the new Clint Eastwood film 'Flags of our Fathers'. Either way it was worth the extra 5mins of walking. Ive totally just compressed at least 6hrs of walking and pic snapping into one paragraph and ive missed a few things off, for example the Vietnam Memorial wall (didnt see any recognisable names) and i think we walked quickly past a Korean memorial as well. It was a busy and tiring day.

With regards to the Capitol Building, the place is shut on weekends so we had to wait with eager anticipation (HA!) until the Monday. Until then there was the intriguing 'Spy Museum'. Not only is it a museum where you look at stuff in glass boxes it was also interactive, how cool! Unfortunately you had to pay $15 but hell we're living it large aint us. First off its a crazy lift to the second floor (crazy purely because of the colourful lighting inside) where you can choose an alias. There were quite a few choices, being a kid at heart i quite fancied myself as a bit of a Bond, a cornish Bond with a weakness for pasties albeit. Therefore i refused to pick some easy too remember character like David Smith from London who works in Telesales, that would be to easy and my name is Bond ... Chris/veg Bond. So i opted for a Russian alias. My name Ivan Dragonov, my occupation fisherman, my residence .... uh .... crap i cant remember but it started with a 'U' ended with 'berg' and had some 'S's and 'J's and probably a 'Z' or 3. My assignment, go to the Yankees stadium and meet my contact (a janitor) and recieve important war based information in the form of a match program. There were some other details that slip my mind now but at the time i was on the ball and ready to please my Red comrads and become a communist hero in the homeland. As you enter the first part of the museum a computer tests your knowledge of your character, i passed with flying colours, 100%, piece of piss. Then the computer gives you more facts to remember for a later test. After 5mins of becoming Ivan and burning the facts into my mind, also adding a few of my own for the sake of fun (Ivan has a limp, left leg, because of an ice skating injury aged 15, it actually stopped him from competing in the winter olympics, terrible waste of talent) i set off on my quest for information. The museum is one of the most interesting ive been in, it goes through tools of the trade then the history and different aspects of spying. Did you know a pigeon was awarded one of the highest honours (for army animals i assume) for successfully delivering a message despite getting pinged in the wing by a stray bullet. Can you belive we call these birds the rats of the sky now, oh how times change. So after a good 3/4 hours of being genuinely interested and entertained the final test came. I must admit i didnt get 100% but i did pass, so vodka's all round when i get back to mother Russia!! Liam passed the first test but failed the second, a spy he is not, maybe he could be the nerdy tech guy who could give me the gadgets but not drive the fast cars, or be with the faster women or shoot the bold baddy with the cat like me.

So Monday came and with it the prospect of the Capitol Building, ive done it before and was not really bothered if i done it again. It was free so may as well go again. Hmmm kinda wish i didnt now. I was bored from start to finish. It just a brief tour of the building, who painted what painting, who sculpted what sculpture, what "great" decisions were made in this historic place etc etc etc. Liam agrees and it was his first time. So im not gonna go into to much detail on the place, plus instead of listening to the tour guide (who was on a bit of a power trip) i replayed an entire episode of 'Quantum Leap' in my head, oh boy. So after that waste of an hour it was off the the National Archives to check out the Declaration of Independance, Bill of Rights and the Constitution. This was more interesting than the Capitol Building but still no Spy Museum. While trying to get some footage of the Bill of Rights a completely random woman decided she would push my buttons and see if she could survive. You are not allowed to use flash photography in the Archive building but you can (and i asked the staff) film and take photo's with no flashes or lights (i suppose it can damage the documents). Well this old broad seen me filming and thought she'd stick her big ol' hooter in, the thing that bothers me is not that she was trying to tell me off (even though she was wrong) its the fact that she didnt have the minerals to approach me directly. Instead she raised her voice and said to her obviously ashamed husband "Hmm so much for not taking any pictures". At this i told her the actual rules and done one, the old Chris would have at least used a swear word or two. So with Monday over that pretty much concludes all daytime activities in D.C. Some interesting, some fun, some not.

So if you think the days were fun wait until you hear about the nights out, until then ...
See's you on the flip side.
Chris

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Photos

El presidente Lemer
Liam and the White House

Me and the phallus
The Monument and me

The Monument
Liam,the monument,me,and my double chin

The Most Deadly Weapon in the World
And your run-of-the-mill Nukes.

Leo's Lunch
"Mother can you fetch my book of ornathology"

WW2 Memorial
part there of

WW2 Memorial #2
'Ang on is vegy taking a tinkle?!?!?

Forest Gump Lake
Chris in the foreground, some bloke called Lincoln in the far background

Big Abe
Chin strap himself!

Iwo Jima
'Flags of our fathers' ... Coming to a cin near you soon.

D.C on a nice day
View from the Capitol building... ok i s'pose

Another statue
Me and some topless army guy!!!

Another statue #2
Liam with some totally naked guy statue!!!

Alien Attack
Shortly after this pic Chris was probed...in a special place.

Comments

[Gem]

Too spooky...
Had a dream last night that you two were back in sunny cornwall, and when i woke up was so jealous to remember you are still shmoozing around the world, then wondered why i hadnt had a blog update. Get to work in a bad mood to discover a new blog entry from you. As always you tickled me pink with your hillarious entry, nice one boys. Glad you're still representing "the sticky out bit at the bottom that kinda roughly points towards the states". Keep up the brill blogs, love ya's. Gem xXx

[Julie Carne]

Finally!!
Hey Guys, was lovely to talk to you last night, sorry we used all your phone credit!! Liam (Williams) has just walked by and asked me to say hello from him, so hello from Liam...can't wait to read your next entry, hope your enjoying Sanfransisco, stay away from those Gay pubs!! speak to you soon, luv ya, Julie xxx

[Laura]

damn.. where's miami?
i mean, c'mon! you forgot about us already? ;) heheheh i miss you guys!!! :'( mean!!! see you had a blast over there... i SO envy you lol sigh... sending you a big hug!!! :)

[Big Bazza]

Quintax error
I can't believe Liam and Veg's presence in Washington actually managed to remove republicans from the senate?!

[Amy]

I've become a subscriber, boys!
I'm waiting for the update with those fabulous and adorable girls you met in Tempe! haha. Nice fake accents though ;) Morgan and I had a blast with you two the other night! How is/was San Francisco? I'm looking forward to reading more about your travels, boys!!