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Published: October 8th 2007
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So I'm now on my Trek and first stop is Washington DC. But before I go onto that I will give a brief description of whats happens so far, so I left Canada on the night bus on the 10th of September and seriously believed at one point that they werent going to let me back into the US, I was the first one off the bus and bought all my documents with me thinking it would be a 5 minute job, i was the last one back on the bus and the driver said that if i would of been 5 minutes longer he would of had to have left without me. I had the immigration officer from hell, I will paint the picture, I get to his little desk , smile and pass over my details. He asked me my address and I of course gave my northern ireland address and the next question was "So do you agree in terrorism then?", i think i was taken aback by the question and must of kind of smiled when i answered No, as then he stood up and I wouldnt say shouted but spoke very loudly in my face "Do
you think its funny?, innocent people dying, good men and women having to leave their families to fight for their country, do you?. As you can proberly tell, we did not get off on the right foot, he huffed and puffed as i told that i was unemployed as i left my job to travel, and wondered why i only had a small bag if im planning to go away for so long, but im a survivor and like they do i survived and got back into the US. I dont think the people on the bus thought much of me though i had kept them waiting 55 minutes. You think that is all that can happen to me on one bus journey but no, at the next stop a load of people got on the bus, mainly amish people, but of course I got physco pete who poked me continuisouly for the next 9 hours thinking he was funny and as there were no seats left on the bus i had to put up with it. I concur with most of the americans - do not take a greyhound at night- there are strange people out there!
So
i finally get to the hotel in New Jersey, at this point absolutly knackered had a shower and made my way to the bar to get something to eat and to see if anyone from the tour was down there asd when travelling alone you have to be socialable. so i get down there at 3.30 and dont leave til quarter to four in the morning, i met no one doing my tour but a couple from southampton which are doing the same tour but with a different tour leader but it was a great night but made getting up and meeting people at 7 that morning quite hard going. So that morning we met up with our group its quite a good mix ranging in ages from 21 to 32, we have Tour Leader Kyle, South Carolina boy with a proper southern accent and a liking for country music which means we have to like it too. 3 aussies, Lauren from Perth, Elise from Adelaide and Russell from Melbourne. Hitomi from Tokoyo, Charlotte from Denmark, Emily from New Zealand and Gareth from England, as im writing thisnearly a month later, i can comfirm that they are a great bunch
of people and we got really well.It was a long drive day on our first day, so we got to the campsite set up our tents and headed to the pool for an hour before doing an illumination tour of washington which is basically seeing the monuments all lit up, it was good but my camera doesnt take good night photos and i was tired and as it happens so was the rest of the group so kyle did a quick drive round them and we headed back to camp, it said it was the quickest illumination tour he ever did, i think just because of that he likes us.The next day was our free day in washington, meaning Kyle drops us off and we are free to do whatever we want til he comes and picks us up. so what do you think we should do first, the white house, the monument, the memorials no our whole group decides to go off to the spy musuem to be spies for this morning, it was fun if a bit cheesy but was a bit of an ice breaker as we got to know each other a bit more, in the
afternoon i did do the tourist thing and went to the white house where their lawns are in need of some serious work, it was so grotty looking and overgrown, not what i expected. Did all the other monuments and then headed off to meet kyle and go to dinner at some vietnamaneese restaurant and back to camp for a few beers/vodkas round the camp before heading to Tennessee tomo.
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