Washington DC

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Getting out of NYC was thankfully much easier than arriving! The train trip was just under three hours and most pleasant.

It was the first week of autumn and DC was experiencing a heat wave - one last blast from Summer. I don't mind the heat (in my younger, less experienced days I travelled to the Middle East in the middle of Summer) but this was crazy heat with off the charts humidity. I hate to say it but it did affect our plans and what we did. The sights of DC are quite spread out and it would have been great to walk from one to the other but it was just too hot. We saw a lot but most of it was from the inside of the old fashioned trolleys.

We all loved Georgetown (the oldest part of DC) and as it was only a ten minute walk from our hotel we visited there every day. The main street is filled with trendy boutiques, bars and cafes (incl a huge Dean and Deluca where I bought way more food than three people could eat in a week).

This will sound wrong... But my favourite part of our time in DC was our visit to the Jewish Holocaust Museum. Mum and I went there whilst dad went to an aviation museum. The special exhibition was on propaganda prior to and during WWII. Luckily, and purely by chance, we entered the exhibition as a free tour was starting. The volunteer conducting the tour was amazing. She was a fabulous speaker and really knew her stuff. I was halfway through reading 'In The Garden of Beasts' (about Dodd, the US Ambassador in Germany from 1933) so timing was perfect. I was absolutely enthralled with the content of the exhibition and the tour. This was perhaps very evident as the guide stopped halfway though her lecture to ask me 'do I know you??' At a later stage she also asked if anyone had read the above mentioned book... I very proudly raised my hand and said yes, meanwhile mum is in the back of the room rolling her eyes and mouthing 'teachers pet'. The mind boggles at the events of the 1930s and the worlds reaction to them.

We did a little shopping to escape the heat and also escaped a tornado. We had no idea that the weather had turned, quickly and violently. Had the power not been cut we probably wouldn't have known at all. I'm going to take that as a sign that shopping centers are good, safe places to be!

We arrived in DC on Wed and left on Sun. Mum and I headed off to Montreal and we said goodbye to dad who was heading home via LA. DC was full off history and whilst I enjoyed our time there I wish the weather had been more conducive for exploring and that I knew more about American history.

And I was disappointed I didn't bump into Alex Cross!!

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