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Published: September 18th 2007
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Washington Monument
Washington Monument from Capitol Hill Washington DC - the capital city of North America. Tuesday 11th September to Saturday 15th September.
We chilled out at Peter and Emma’s for the morning before Peter kindly came home from work at 10am to give us a lift to the Greyhound terminal in the centre of Philly. The weather is shocking, overcast, pouring down but still hot and humid. We definitely picked the best day to travel as the rest of the time the weather has been perfect. The bus was late so had to make good time in order to meet Yuri at her office in DC. It was another long, boring, uncomfortable trip - but it was cheap. I got chatting to an old black guy in his seventies who was originally from Philly. He used to be a bus driver and knew all the routes across America. He was a walking encyclopaedia of roads and routes. He was a very nice man and wondered why the hell we wanted to move to Australia as he had a phobia of spiders and snakes! He hated living in the city now and was moving to Richmond, Virginia where his brother lived so he could spend his days
fishing.
This is our third time to visit Yuri and Atsushi in Washington DC since 1999, only this time there is an extra member of the family - 20 month old Yuta who is so cute and such a character, always laughing and smiling.
We arrived in DC a little late at 4:30 and grabbed a cab to Yuri’s office where she met us and drove to pick Yuta up from day-care. He wasn’t best please to be sharing his car with two strangers, but he soon came around. Atsushi met us there and we drove the hour or so to Yuri’s house in Gainesville, a nice old town outside of DC. We stopped off for Mexican food for dinner then spent the evening catching up. It was really good to see them again and spend a few hours playing with Yuta and his toys.
Up at 6am on Wednesday to catch a lift into the city with Yuri. They have a one hour plus commute from their house, and this can turn into a lot more depending on the traffic. We breakfasted in the ’Corner Bakery’ near Yuri’s office, which was very nice, and set out
for another long day of walking.
Yuri’s office is near the White House, so we started there before walking the length of the Mall to Capitol Hill at the other end of the city. You can’t get inside Capitol Hill now unless you are on a tour due to the increased security since 9/11. We picked up a free tour ticket but the next tour was too late and we were meeting Yuri and Atsushi for lunch. So we walked up to Union Station for a look around, then on to the art museum before heading down to meet Yuri and have a sushi lunch in a fantastic Japanese restaurant.
After lunch we walked to the National Geographic offices then on to White House to take some photos before walking around the Washington Monument, ( that’s the tall spike you often see in the movies ). We walked around the reflecting pool, ( from Forest Gump ), and then around the tidal basin before meeting Yuri to go back home.
The weather has been perfect since the rain cleared the air. It’s hot, clear blue skies but not at all humid. Emma caught the sun today and
is sporting a lovely red glow.
We were totally bushed by Thursday as we haven’t really stopped since we left the UK. Yuri took today off to do some packing as they are moving closer to the city, so Emma and I spent the day playing with Yuta. He is such a character, great fun. We parcelled up some surplus clothes that we packed and forwarded them to Melbourne to save us a bit of weight.
Friday saw us back in DC to try and get into Capitol Hill for a look around. We managed to get an afternoon slot, so spent the morning wandering around DC’s botanic gardens. They have a huge conservatory with a jungle and orchid areas. It was excellent. We met Yuri at Atsushi's work - The World Bank HQ where he is a software engineer. He signed us all in so we could go for lunch there. We all had to go through security and metal detectors. Once inside, it is awesome. It’s like a city in itself. The food hall has stations from all different countries so we tucked in to an Indian curry as there won’t be any of those in
Oz.
From the World Bank we took the tube back up to Capitol Hill for our tour. The DC metro is the best of the undergrounds we have used so far, much cleaner than New York and bigger and faster than Boston. Capitol Hill is where the president, congress and the senate meet to discuss the running of the country. It was the most BORING tour we have ever done, You are not allowed into the chambers due to security, so you only get to see the inside of the rotunda and the hall of statues. It would have been fine, but they padded it out to an hour! The rotunda was interesting, we were told to stand in a particular spot whilst the guide walked over to the other side of the hall. When he started speaking, you could hear him perfectly due to the acoustics of the building. As he started walking back toward us his voice disappeared until he was back with the group. All of the desks would have originally been around the outside of the rotunda so each of the members of the house would be able to hear each other when debating. Amazing
to think they had the ability to design this back in the days without computers. Our guide was an American history student so we got a lot of details about the construction of the Hill, interestingly enough though, he neglected to tell everyone that the British burned the first one down.
It was back to Gainesville after that, via a stop in a Korean restaurant for dinner, to pack for leaving for Vegas in the morning.
DC has been our favourite city so far. It’s nice and open, clean and all the attractions and museums are free. DC and its surrounding area would be a great place to live for a while but the commute from the nicer or affordable areas would be a nightmare. So far, we wouldn’t swap Melbourne for any of the cities we have visited.
We have been away two weeks today, and it is absolutely flying over!
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