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Published: January 26th 2007
The Monument
I like this photo, the sun setting behind the monument but it also shows how the monument stands out - no other buildings near it...DC AND LITTLE ROCK
Will put photos up of DC and Little Rock soon... Am really loving the US! Washington DC is probably my favourite place so far. Like most places as well though, I spent a lot of time there and still didnt get to do as much as I wanted to do... Just means Ill have to go back at some point! The best thing about Washington is that it is the land of the free - free museums, sites, tours etc etc!
DC is a very clean city - the Metro is easily the cleanest Ive seen. I started off by going to 'see' the White House, which was pretty rubbish as you cant get close enough to see anything and tours have been banned since 11/9 (Am sticking to the British style of writing the date 😉. I also went to White House Visitor Centre (mainly to use the toilet) where I was subjected to the first of many security searches in Washington - they have airport style security at EVERY attraction - why the US thinks that someone would want to attack the White House Visitor Centre, which is nowhere near the White House,
Lincoln Memorial
View of Lincoln memorial with the (very cool) World War II memorial and reflecting pool inbetween or one of the museums in town or anything like that Ill never know! Went up the Old Post Office Tower, with reasonably nice views of Washington but with strange wires down the window so it was hard to take photos!
My favourite part of Washington was the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial (the Washington-Lincoln stretch with the World War Memorial in between). The Monument is in the middle of a huge park and stands head and shoulders above anything else in DC. From the Lincoln Memorial you can sit on the steps and look down towards the Monument - where there is a reflecting pool - and I enjoyed sitting there relaxing. The best thing about Washington, which differs it from New York and Philly and many other places, is that it is not flashy or full of skyscraper hotels and over-the-top advertising (it hasnt sold out); instead Washington just lets the history speak for itself. There are no skyscraper Hilton hotels propped alongside the Washington Monument - instead it stands out as the symbol for the city - no buildings are allowed to be built taller than it, for example. DC is a lot more naturalistic, quite
Washington Monument
My favourite spot in DC, standing on the steps of Lincoln Memorial (on exact spot where Luther King gave his "I Have a Dream Speech") like their neighbour's capital Ottawa, in this way - the centre of DC is a huge park full of joggers and cyclists - a big change having come from Philly and NY - but I liked it, much like I loved Central Park in NY.
However, Capitol Hill is a little different and not what I expected. I thought it was more 'Capitol Slope' than hill - I expected it to be up high overlooking the city - but it is actually quite hard to find! The building itself is really nice though and there is another reflecting pool there - DC loves the reflecting pool! I went to see it with an English guy called Ben, who is visiting the US on a study break from his masters degree, but we could not get into the balcony in the House of Representatives (same as the House of Commons basically) because the security people didnt like a couple of the things in my bag and I didnt want to throw them away!
DC is also packed full of museums - free as I mentioned before. I only made it to a couple though, the Air and Space museum
Capitol 'Slope'
Up a little highish on the slope of Capitol Hill with another reflecting pool - DC home of the reflecting pools! where I liked the exhibits about the 'Space Race' to the moon and the Wright Brothers invention of the plane. The American History Museum was closed for renovation which was a shame, but they had a few pieces from it in the Air and Space Museum - these were my favourite in there! Some interesting stuff, such as the declaration of Independence, that I had learned about in Philly, as well as some modern stuff such as items from the Rocky movies or Seinfeld! I also went to the Holocaust Museum, which was very interesting. Of course I knew about the Holocaust but seeing some of the more indepth stories and photos was a real eye opener.
Naturally of course I sampled the nightlife DC has to offer and had several good nights, plenty of Sam Adams 😉 I partied a lot with an Aussie guy called Trevor, who was taking 2 months off work to travel around for a while. He told me about his bungee jump in New Zealand, think I am definitely going to have to try that! He was an interesting person, when I asked him where he was from he said 'My mum. And
An 'Aeroplane'
The first ever plane, flown by the Wright Brothers in the first ever flight in 1903 if I was from your Mum we'd be brothers!' I think that about sums up his sense of humour (and why I got along with him so well!)
One evening I went out with Ben, Aussie Trevor an Estonian traveller called Risto and a few others from the hostel for some live jazz (I spent a lot of the evening winding up Risto about how it was good of him to turn up - because the Estonian football team had failed to turn up for a match against Scotland once (Aussie Trevor liked this so also joined in...)). We went to a quite classy bar, the band consisted of a piano, cello, drummer and singer. It was nice but a little too downbeat for my liking - more like background music for a restaurant I thought. After that we moved on to a bar called Madam Organs, in a part of town called Adams Morgan - which was quite lively. I saw my first ever live country band! Wasnt really that great though... We had a good night, got to drink beer out of jam jar glasses! Oh and the Estonian for cheers is Tera (pronounced Ter-eh)!
Another
More rocky pics
The Rocky exhibit in the American History Museum night we started in Madam Organs and ended up in a bar/club called Tom Tom (just me and Aussie Trevor at this point) where you got a free shot with your beer - very dangerous! But I enjoyed the DC nightlife a lot, met a lot of friendly people - I think between the sites and nightlife this is one of my favourite places so far. And an Ethiopian taxi driver told me 'Dananai' is cheers in Ethiopian!
So I headed on to experience the mid-south of America after this, in the city of Little Rock in Arkansas - visiting my friend Zoe who I was friends with after she spent a year in Glasgow studying. Spent a couple of nights catching up with her, meeting some of her friends at various parties... I also tasted gumbo at one of these parties - one of many specialties of the south (they have a lot of their own food and words down there!) - a kind of cajun chicken stew which I thought was ok. I introduced her friend Lauren to proper Scottish Whisky (she drinks American stuff) and introduced her friends to the 20-22 drinking game (Zoe remembers it
MI-SSI-SSI-PPI
The Mississippi River with the bridge leading from Arkansas to Tennessee from her time in Scotland!) which we changed to a game of 40-42 since there were so many people playing!
I took a couple of trips with Zoe. We went, with Lauren, to Memphis, Tennessee - the home of the blues and also the home of Elvis! Memphis is a really nice city but a little bit dirty, with a lot of downtrodden buildings - but Beale Street is still a cool street though, lined with Blues Bars! We had lunch in the Blues Cafe, where I tried Tamale (Lauren and Zoe laughed when I tried to pronounce it - it's Ta-Mal-Eh) - another southern delicacy - which I liked even though it was a little spicy... I also had Texas Toast - which was just toast but made with thicker bread ('everything's bigger in Texas'!)
Having walked around the city, we headed out to Graceland, on the outskirts of the town, and, of course, where Elvis lived. We didnt go into Elvis's house - we all thought $25 to see a house was a little steep - but walked around looking at all the Elvis themed places, I annoyed all the shopkeepers we spoke to with my
Beale St, Memphis
Beale St, jam packed with Blues Bars - BB King where we saw a band is on the right Elvis impression as well (thank you very much 😉. After that we headed to Tucana, Mississippi - our third state of the day! We went to a casino called Sams Town (we chose that one as it is the chain that the new Killers album was named after!). We played on the low cost slot machines for a while, but all 3 of us got bored very quickly (I really dont understand slot machines - total waste of time, what's the point in playing a machine designed to take your money?!) so all of us, having gambled away about $5 each, headed onwards - back to Memphis for the evening.
We ate in BB King's Blues Bar - one of the most famous in Memphis. I tried Fried Pickles and Catfish - more big Southern dishes - for the first time, both of which I loved. The bar was very cool, there was live music, a jazzy blues band with a trumpet, sax, bass/accoustic and electric guitars - who were top notch, one of, if not the, best I have seen on my trip so far...mainly because they played two of my all time favourite songs: Stand By Me
Graceland
Me, Homer, Zoe and Lauren outside the home of Elvis (Ben E Elton) and Sitting On the Dock of the Bay. We had planned on going to Coyote Ugly to see the waitresses dancing on the bar, but totally forgot about this plan after the band came on! I also found a new American beer I liked - Michelob Ultra (not because it has 'Mich' in it's name, it's actually quite decent)
I also went to Hot Springs, with Zoe, where Bill Clinton grew up, and is famous for... Hot Springs! We walked around town, up into the park a little, looking at (and testing) the springs - which was very cool, filling up a couple of bottles with spring water too... We walked around one of the baths as well. I thought the town could have made more of what they have - the springs have been around since the beginning of civilisation - they could promote themselves a bit better, build some new attractions - most of the baths buildings at the bottom of the hill are sitting unused. Also there is not a lot of information such as how do these hot springs exist, where do they come from!? Although, it was out of season and
Hot Springs
Homer hadnt showered the whole trip, so I made him take one at Hot Springs! very quiet while I was there. We went up the hill where you could see the countryside in Arkansas, which is full of trees - apparently Arkansas is called the Nature State!
So that was my experience of the mid-south of America, which I loved, especially the accent and especially the word y'all, but I also loved the people - they are unbelievably friendly, even though they do drive huge trucks...(couldnt get the Weird Al truck drivin song out my head the whole time!)
After Little Rock I am heading off to Vancouver, to meet up with some folks from the Toronto hostel and possibly my friend Doug from Uni who is in Whistler just now, before Ill work my way down the west coast of the US...
Bye for now, y'all keep in touch now!
Mich
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Risto
non-member comment
yo
Cheers in Estonian is actually "Terviseks!", have you forgotten already? Nice blog, i will keep an eye on it from now on. Enjoy your trip, im back in Estonia. It is funny, your English is pretty good when it is written down, pain in the ass to follow when you speak though.