Washington D.C.

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After the four and a half hour bus journey from New York City, we scoffed down some lunch, checked in to our excellent hostel and made our way to the White House. After taking the obligatory photo, we noticed that there were security cameras hidden amongst the low lying bushes - and there I was thinking what a lovely garden and lawn it was, but it's just a cover for the security! We resisted testing out whether they were actually watching us, deciding to walk towards the Washington Monument instead of scaling the fence. The Washington Monument is the enormous obelisk that seems to be visible from all parts of the city. Whilst the obelisks I saw in Egypt were more impressive as they are a single piece of cut stone, the Washington Monmument is still a structure that commands your attention. From here we walked along to the Reflecting Pool that I first recall seeing as a young lad whilst watching the film 'Forrest Gump' during the scene when Jenny runs into the water calling out "Forrest!" when he was being awarded the Congressional Medal of Honour. All along the length of the Reflecting Pool are memorials for the various wars that America has been involved in. The one that I liked the most was the Korean War Memorial, which had a unique and interesting design, with sculptures of soldiers seeming to be moving through the battle field in a 'V' formation, at the head of which is a small pool which gave me a moment of quiet pause and reflection.

The most impressive of all the monumnents and memorials is without a doubt the Lincoln Memorial. Standing at the feet of Lincoln's statue, which is housed in an impressive structure designed in the form of an ancient Greek temple, you can look all the way along the Reflecting Pool, then the World War II Memorial, followed by the Washington Monument and ultimately settle your gaze upon the iconic Capitol Building. The Lincoln Memorial is also the location where Martin Luther King, Jr delivered his famous "I have a dream" speech. Standing on this same spot was a particular highlight of my time in Washington D.C. and the significance of Lincoln's role in the abolition of slavery was not lost on me. Now with Obama as President, that dream is certainly being realised, which is a wonderful thing.

From here we made our way to the Arlington Cemetery. The layout of the cemetery is quite interesting, as the thousands of graves are simply marked by an understated white piece of stone. An exception to this are the graves of John F. Kennedy and his family, which are marked by bronze plaques in the ground, with the centre point of the plot having an eternal flame burning.

The following day we walked to the Capitol and went on a free guided tour of the building. This is where Congress meets, with the Senate and the House of Representatives having their discussions and debates here. It is a magnificent building in its design and wandering through its interior was made even more enjoyable by our guide, whose powers of memory retention and recall were simply astounding. The most impressive room is the rotunda underneath the enormous central dome. It is here where former Presidents have their coffin placed in order to lie in state (the most recent being Ronald Reagan). An individual may also have their coffin placed here to lie in honour, which has only occured on three occasions, one of whom was Rosa Parks.

On our way back to the hostel to collect our bags for the bus ride back to New York City, I quickly dropped into the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum. One of the most interesting exhibits for me was seeing the first aeroplane to successfully make the flight from America to Europe. It's incredible to see how far the technology has advanced since this time and it is even more astonishing that the tin box I was looking at actually made the journey at all! The other exhibit which opened my eyes was seeing two nuclear missiles which were disarmed during the 1987 Nuclear Forces Treaty between the U.S.A. and Russia. There was one from each country on display and prior to seeing them I had no concept of the sheer size of these missiles. They looked like they could be a space rocket, such was their length and girth. I'm glad they're not in use any more, although I'm quite sure that both countries still have plenty of nuclear weapons at their disposal, which is an alarming thought!

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