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Published: April 23rd 2014
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Okay so since our last update we have been very busy! We have flown to Washington DC, caught a train to Boston and then to New York City.
Washington DC is a large, sprawling city with a centre that Canberra clearly modelled itself on. The National Mall is a massive public space that is dotted with imposing memorials to key presidential and public figures and wars on one end and the Capitol building on the other with the White House jutting out at an angle. Depending on your perspective we have been blessed or cursed by timing our trip to coincide with the annual cherry blossom festival. The large memorial parklands and ornamental lake are swarming with locals and tourists here to view the lovely blossoms on the thousands of cherry trees gifted by Japan over the last hundred years. They are an amazing site but the crowds are often immovable throngs we need to thread Katy's stroller through.
Our favourite memorials are those to Lincoln and FDR. The former is justly famous but the latter is an imaginative, thoughtful tribute that takes
you through outdoor "rooms" which reflect on the four terms of his presidency. Two great leaders at challenging times in the nations history. While at Lincoln's monument we took the time to stand where Martin Luther king made his "I have a dream" speech. Amazing to imagine a million plus people filling the mall hanging on his words. Wow!!
Although interesting and impressive we found the National Mall difficult to traverse - the sheer scale makes visiting a big commitment and it is hard to also do the many museums and galleries justice. We decided to do just one other site - the national archives to see the original Declaration of Independence and constitution. Really great facility which let's you do searches of digitised national records like a letter from a 12 year old girl appealing to the president to sign a law to prohibit lynching in the 1930s and ads for fugitive slaves.
We also did a day trip out to Mount Vernon, George Washington's
family estate. He was a truly remarkable man - twice he returned political power to congress after being successful in military campaigns and he refused to serve more than two terms as inaugural president establishing a near unbroken custom (it's not actually law) that no president should serve more than this number. But, he was a slave owner too which is a challenging combination.
The real highlights of Washington for us were again food related! We found this amazing diner called Florida Avenue Grill which has been continually operating since 1948 with virtually unchanged decor and menu! Amazingly the original owners imagined it as a place where people of all backgrounds (read blacks and whites) could be welcome. My favourite breakfast so far featured an incredible omelet (or for Evan fried eggs over medium) with choice of sides - we chose hot biscuits (scones), pancakes, grits, apples and scrapple (thin square slices of fried meat). Oh.My.Goodness!!
The second was Ben's Chilli Bowl another long time stalwart.
During the riots after Martin Luther King was assassinated Ben's was given special permission to stay open for both the police and activists when many other places were either destroyed, looted or barricaded closed. Bill Cosby was a regular in the 1950's and Obama was taken there by the DC mayor as part of his welcome to the city. His picture, eating the house special chilli dog is immortalised on t-shirts and post cards! We had chilli dogs (they have a vegan version too) and chilli fries (house made chilli served over everything!).
A quick mention of our visit to the National Zoo to see the pandas. This is part of the smithsonian Institute but is seriously the lamest zoo we have ever visited. I mean there were road side animal parks in South America with more vibrant animal populations than this one! For a start there were hardly any animals and those they did have were pretty inactive (Helen - you know what I was thinking!). But the pandas including a baby were super cute.
Train to Boston next. We headed north for a full day of travelling which involved lots of walking Katy up and down
the aisles! We were staying in Beacon Hill on Charles Street which is the heart of old Boston. Boston was one of the earliest British colonies and the city is seeped in history. Cobblestones, wooden houses and churches abound. It was also the location of key events in the war of independence with Britain and the city bristles with pride at this fact. We toured those key sites as part of the Freedom Trail which is a self guided walk across the city Taking in sites like Paul ("the British are coming!") Revere's house. The boston marathon bombing was still a fresh wound as the one year anniversary loomed. Banners and posters and t-shirts proclaimed "Boston Strong"' the unofficial slogan of the city since the bombings As a show of their resilience. Apart from soaking up some history our other main priority was getting Ev some New England lobster. We managed to get him a lobster roll and a whole lobster dinner which was very well received! Our last stop was a quick buzz past Harvard and MIT - we are informally scoping out Katy's future colleges 😊 Take care!
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