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

Washington, DC -In the midst of Pope-mania Arriving in Washington, DC we didn't know whether we were lucky or not. Pope Francis was arriving the following day to meet the president -roads were going to be closed, access to some of the sights were going to be limited. The whole event was kind of a big deal. We knew nothing about his DC visit until we were on the Megabus there. We are not Roman Catholic, so hearing of his visit we were more or less indifferent to it. We were coming to Washington to sightsee, get a glimpse of Barack and shamefully visit sights featured in the popular US TV show 'Scandal'. Washington, DC is definitely a capital built with the intention of being a capital. The wide roads are in grid format; vertical avenues ... read more

We landed in Charlotte, North Carolina, a bit dazed after a long old night flight from Hawaii. During the flight I made friends with a lovely lady from Tennessee who confessed that she had a “real strong Southern accent”… She was awesome. Once we picked up the car, we made the four hour trip to the Great Smoky Mountains. Approaching the National Park, we noticed that there were a large number of large men sporting dungarees, handlebar moustaches and enormous beards, and that the people were incredibly friendly and welcoming. Now, Tom left you on a “cliffhanger” about the tent so here goes… we’d had many thoughts on how to fix it, some more ridiculous than others, none seeming very likely to work. We eventually found temporary success by cutting the elastic, removing the broken section ... read more

Our day "off" Thursday was quite welcome. Julianne and two of her roommates stopped over for some pool time, but the water was super cold so I didn't get in. She was heading back to Minnesota the next day, so that was our last visit with her while we were here. Friday we decided to be a little ambitious, knowing things would likely get pretty hectic on the Fourth. We started off at the Smithsonian Institution Building (The Castle); not much to it, but it was a super cool building. From there, we headed over to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. That place had some very neat exhibits - there are two floors, an Imax theater and a planetarium! We saw tons of planes, several space suits, space exploration vehicles and satellites, huge missiles, ... read more

This is a somewhat belated post as we had a busy time travelling in May when my Mum and Dad visited and we haven’t really caught up yet. In classic Ian style, Dad decided to book flights to come and visit before we’d completely settled in which result in them flying in the day before I had to fly out to Washington DC for an admin week at the Embassy. So we decided to view this as an opportunity rather than a problem and turned it into a holiday. I headed off to the embassy for a few days to have Fiona, the boys and Mum and Dad join me mid week for some sight seeing. The few days up at the embassy were a little tedious, but it was great to catch up with a ... read more

With dawn breaking on our first full day it was up and at 'em for the Trotters. We had tickets booked for the trolley bus tour and jumped into a taxi to take us to its starting point. 15 minutes of slow moving traffic with a sermon on the radio about the evils in this world can feel like a lifetime when you're still slightly jet lagged. I have to say that Bill handled the drivers direct questions about his love of Jesus Christ and the certainty of going to Hell without it with skill and tact. Personally,I was more than relieved to escape with a leaflet about life after death after a merciful break in the traffic. The trolley bus was excellent. Basically a hop on hop of service that takes you around all the ... read more