Washington D.C.

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Another Greyhound bus took us from Philly to the capital of the US, Washington D.C. We then checked into our hostel which was right in the center. After a Thai dinner, we hooked up with the free tour of the nearby district of Georgetown where John F Kennedy once lived before becoming president and also where they filmed the steps scene from The Excorcist. The tour ended in a bar and on the way home we got soaked in a thunder and lightening storm. Great! The next day (Richard's birthday) we had a $2 breakfast and had to move to a different hostel which was an "interesting" place. We then went to the Capitol and were lucky enough to get two tickets for a tour inside. This is where the US congress sit but we weren't allowed in that bit. We did see inside the central rotunda which has some old paintings and stuff. We also went downstairs to the crypt where the centre of washington is marked by a star. In the evening, we went to an Irish bar and drank some beers while listening to a guy murdering Pogues songs on an acoustic guitar. Later on we were entertained by some members of the Washington district police pipe band. Then we went back to the hostel and watched a basketball game with our host, Bill.
The next morning we wanted to go to the museum of American history which has Dorothy's ruby slippers from the Wizard of Oz but alas it was closed. Instead we had a chili dog "with everything." We were lucky again when we tried to go up the Washington monument and were handed two tickets from a school party which had too many. Others had queued from 7am to get these tickets as there are only 1800 handed out per day. From the top we enjoyed great views of Washington through the tiny windows at the top. Afterwards we went to the natural history museum and saw mammoths and dinosaurs. We went back to the hostel with a bottle of wine 😊
The next day was fairly relaxed as were preparing for an overnight bus to Cleveland. We hung out at the Lincoln memorial and watched some Chinese performers and saw the American Indian museum. It started raining heavily as we headed to the Greyhound station for our mammoth bus trip.

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Photos

Washington monument
It has tiny windows!

Chili dog
They're fab!