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“It's aa haaf yeas draave man” comforting words from Rob who works for National, our car rental company, as he jokes about our trip. Until now we've always only got head shaking and laughing when speaking about our road trip plans. We'll show them!

We got up at 6 am, noticing we had to be at JFK by 9 am. This time we took the tube, no more taxi driving please! After talking our way out of all the extras and upgrades offered by the cocky National personnel, we were ready for take off. Then we luckily met Rob and Harry. Two really nice guys, Rob a biker himself, helped us out with loads of tips for the road plus wind shield fluid and other accessories for the car. Thanx a bunch you two!

And off we go!
We took the Interstate 95 going south and ended up paying much more for tolls than for gas! We needed 4:30 hours to Arlington, Washington D.C. There we checked in an old and tatty Days Inn. But the room was cheap, clean and had everything we needed. We parked our car safely at the back. All our way through Washington Olly got paranoid about getting highjacked and made me hold the Nüvi down, so it couldn't be seen. He was sure we were being followed by a cruiser with four suspicious looking men inside.

Our hotel had a dodgy little shuttle service. At 5 pm we were in Washington. Who would of thought you can do Washington in only 3 hours? Strangely enough we saw almost everything there was to see, enjoyed ourselves, took our time plus went shopping and made it just in time for the last shuttle bus at 8 pm. We saw The White House, close enough to touch, a very impressive ancient Greek style building. The Washington Monument of course, not quite as impressive as I thought it might be. But the Lincoln Memorial was breathtaking. An absolutely massive building with beautiful surroundings and views. Inside there was a gigantic statue of Abe, above his famous words. To each side you could see the Vietnam Memorials and then there was this little book shop inside plus a small exhibit at the bottom. But before we could take any photos, our batteries gave up!! Then this old veteran, from an information booth about Vietnam veterans, came up to us and saved the day by giving us two batteries in exchange for a small donation. That is why we are luckily able to upload our photos of Washington here. We took a long walk back to the Metro Center and found Washington's student quarter. After a walk past the campus, a beer in a student bar and shopping at CVS we were tired and well equipped with dinner for the evening and snacks for the next day. At 8:10 pm we were back in our room enjoying chinese soups cooked with water from the coffee machine with far too soft bread and gummy worms :)
Good Night

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