Yes Mr President - Washington DC

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It was time to hit the road again and head down the east coast - next stop Washington DC It was a little like Canberra but bigger.
We caught a "Megabus" downfrom New York to Washington and arrived 4 hours later. It was actually a really comfortable bus ride and was cheaper than the Greyhound buses. A week before I left London I made a rule - whenever we’re on a double decker bus, we must sit on the top, front seat if possible. Being that this bus was a double decker up the top we went and as luck would have it I scored a front seat with a perfect view of the road ahead.

We arrived in DC in the afternoon and checked into our hostel for our weekend in DC. This also happened to be Presidents Day weekend and also was commemorating Lincoln’s 200th Birthday. We thought the city could be busy. The hostel was filled with people and groups. We had finally found a hostel with a kitchen and a supermarket to buy food unlike our two previous locations.

Since we had signed up for a free walking tour the night before we had an early start to get ourselves organized. Jeff our tour guide met us all in the foyer and we were off to explore DC with witty comments and stale jokes that he uses on everyone. The tour started with the Treasury Building and The White House. Our first view of the White House was not how we expected, it was nothing like in the pictures and it had loads of scaffolding up from President Obama’s inauguration a month ago. We kept walking around to the Eisenhower Building where all the work gets done and a Smithsonian museum of art and the view of the White House West Wing. Now that’s what they show in the movies.

From there we headed down the Mall to Washington Monument, a huge white obelisk of different coloured stone. At 555ft it can easily be seen from all over DC. Next memorial on route was the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, and from there we headed to the Franklin Delano Roosevelt or FDR Monument. It was made up of four rooms to symbolise the four terms of office he served. It was the only president to serve four terms in office, however he died a few days into his last term due to severe polio. From there it was off to the ever popular Lincoln Memorial, he was the 16th president and certainly popular even to now. Since it was Valentine’s Day (we realized that at the FDR monument) there were loads of couples out for the day. We even saw a proposal at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and they say romance is dead.

After we all felt filled with love and admiration we continued our tour to the Korean War Memorial, 19 eerie stone troops spread out on patrol. Next stop was the Vietnam Veterans Memorial; we found out the America’s involvement in The Vietnam War was 15 years. Two dates of births on the wall showed a soldier died aged 18, and another was 3 years old when that soldier died and then he also died during the war aged 18. More than 58,000 names are etched into two black marble walls of those who died or are missing during the Vietnam War; it was a lovely and moving memorial.

The last stop on Jeff’s free walking tour of DC was the National WWII Memorial opened in 2004 is the newest memorial which honors 16 million Americans who served in the armed forces during the war and the 400,000 who died. While Jeff was wrapping up his tour, a elderly gentle asked to come over and speak to the group. His name was Wes, he was 91 years old and wanted to made sure that anyone who had relatives in the WWII was in one of their role books . He worked as a radio engineer during the war and helped with Iwa Jima. He created a secret frequency the Japanese couldn’t interfere with and they could complete their mission to capture Iwa Jima. While he admitted that was impressive he told us his work his most proud of was during the Cold War, he worked for a private form and the government put out a request for engineers and inventors to help build some things they need to get into space. He like the rest of his collegues had a look at what they wanted and one had to do with radio switches. They needed to create a switch to transfer power to DC power on an aircraft so that solar power could be used. Well we met the man who created said switch, Nasa are still using his model to this day. We were impressed and moved and didn’t know what else to say.

After the end of our tour we decided to head down to some of the Smithsonian Museums, those included The National History of America Museum, where you could see the original American flag and a collection of First Lady’s Inauguration Ball gowns. They were amazing the different styles, fabric and designs throughout the ages. Just fantastic. As it was very crowded we decided to keep moving as it wouldn’t be too long and they were going to close. Next was the National Museum of the Native America; it was good again though very crowded. Last for the day before heading back to the hostel was the Air and Space Museum - that was great. It had so many aircrafts and rockets in the foyer and it was interactive and informative and it keep you interested. They had an exhibition on landing on the moon, with spacesuits, and moon buggies and bits of moon rocks. It was very full again but it was really very good and highly recommended for a family outing when your next in DC. We made the long walk back to the hostel, made dinner and hit the sack.

Sunday was meant to be warmer. I had high hopes; so much so I didn’t wear a thermal top just took it. Unfortunately while the sun was lovely the wind was icy. By the time we had arrived at Arlington Cemetery I had to put the thermal top on, I had given up on any warm weather. Arlington Cementery is 612 acres of national cemetery, veterans from every war since the civil war have been burial there and it see around 26 funerals every weekday. It is a field was white tomb stones as far as the eye could see. We didn’t expect it to take very long but it actually took us a few hours. We walked the paths visiting JFK’s enteral flame, memorials to various military people, those who died in Space missions Colombia and Challenger, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers as well as the Civil War. We also explored the very new Women’s War Memorial. It explored the topics of where women has come from regarding the levels of service and those women who were the ground breakers and those who are serving currently in Iraq or Afghanistan. I found it to be a lovely, moving memorial to inspire generations of young girls to aim high and know they can do anything.

We marched on, still a few move things to see today. We found ourselves at the Iwa Jima Memorial, it is a memorial to cemerated all Marines servicemen. The statue was off the famous picture of soldiers raising an American Flag after they have capture Japanese land.

We had decided to head back into town and check out a few more things. We had two for one voucher for Ben and Jerry’s, it was time to explore more flavours, I had Imagine Whirled Peace (yummy) and Cake Batter (a bit ho-hum), Stephen had Chunky Monkey (nice but not cold enough) and Coconut Lover (fine) but not as good as the first flavours we had tried in NYC. The problem we have come across so far with Ben and Jerry’s is the ice-cream is just lovely the service is rubbish. We had a look around the Old Post Pavilion and then went to the National Archives; the line was outside and round the corner. We had decided to pass it wasn’t important to us anyway.

We headed back to the hostel to rest, cooked dinner and went to bed. Tomorrow was a travel day we are off to Miami. Fingers crossed for some sun and the beach.

Hope you all well.
Love Michelle and Stephen.

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Photos

The White House
As seen from the famous west wing.

Capitol Hill
Where all the decisions are made and debated.

Arlington Cermetery
An amazing monument to self-sacrifice.

Iwa Jima Memorial
As seen in the famous image from the time. There where six soldiers raising the flag but only three survived the war.