Blogs from Washington, District of Columbia, United States, North America - page 7

Well its Saturday evening and we have spent the last 4 nights in Washington. This is our last night here as we are leaving for New York tomorrow morning. So far my feet feel like they have walked every inch of this city, but I feel like there is still loads to see, especially in the museums. We have been to the natural history and aviation and space museum this week, spending almost a whole day in each and that’s going around them at speed! We have also seen all the main sites along the mall, walking to most and also doing an open top London bus tour around them as well. I found the main area around the mall to be very odd. All the buildings and monuments are made of white stone and have ... read more

I lived in Silver Spring, MD, in 2004, during an internship with the Meteorological Development Laboratory (MDL). Sadly, I've only lived in four places during my lifetime (Tekamah, NE; Norman, OK; Silver Spring, MD; Huntsville, AL), and easily my favorite was the DC area. So many people, so many places, so much food, precious little time. The year went by in a flash, and I cherish each moment I had during my temporary stay. It took maybe a day for me to realize that the best way to travel in DC was by public transportation. New York City has "the Subway", Chicago has "the L", and Washington, DC, has "the Metro". I love all three of them, in different ways. I love the Subway for its attitude, the L for its ease, and the Metro for ... read more

After a year of world travel we have been coping with rejoining normal life, seeing the same scenery day after day and despairing the fact that in America 2 weeks holiday is a priviledge and not a right. But finally after 3 long months of working without a day off we at last are experiencing our first American paid holiday, Labor Day. Borrowed from our neighbors to the North, Labor Day is a celebration of the worker. So revelling in the fact that we now qualify to celebrate this special day we packed our bags and travelled a few hours south to America's capitol, Washington DC. Hopping on the Metro we made our way into the city past the untouristed bits that seem the exact opposite of the white stone of the Roman-esqe Mall. We disembarked ... read more

WASHINGTON, D.C. July 29 - August 4, 2009 It had been over twenty-five years since we spent any time in DC, so we were really looking forward to our trip. However, we never guessed we would enjoy it so immensely and consider it to be one of our favorite vacations. It’s the best city in the world for a “fun education,” and it makes history daily! We flew into Reagan National Airport around 3 p.m. on Wednesday and took the Metro directly to our hotel, the Washington Grand Hyatt. When I say directly, I mean directly because the Metro central station is located below the hotel! Instead of a $30 cab ride, we each spent only $2 for a Metro ticket. When we reached our stop (in about 20 minutes), all we had to do was ... read more

We got up in time to catch the coach into DC at 9:00. we got dropped outside the Smithsonian Castle again and walked round to the Holocaust Museum. We had to line up to get a ticket to get in, our time was for 10:30. We went in, its was veryyyyy sad but very well set up. We stayed here for just under 2hrs, watching the videos and reading all boards and looking at all the photographs. After this, we headed over to the National Museum of American History. In here we saw The original flag that inspired the American National Anthem, The Star Spangled Banner. It was huge, and under guard as you were allowed to take pictures of it. We then headed into the Popular Culture section of the museum where we saw the ... read more