Advertisement
Published: November 16th 2009
Edit Blog Post
Oct. 16 The original plan for the day was quite an aggressive one. Up real early (6:30am), catch the metro, transfer to the yellow line, hook up with a local bus and get to Mount Vernon by about 10am. Unfortunately Melissa had been working on a nasty cold for the last couple days, and it hit pretty hard by the end of the hockey game. So we decided to skip Mount Vernon this trip, wake up a little later and begin the day with a tour around Arlington National Cemetary.
The weather had gotten no better, so the day was spent with umbrella in one hand, camera in the other. Arlington National Cemetary began as a 1,100 acre plantation owned by George Washington Parke Custis, the step-son of George Washington. Custis' only surviving child ending up marrying Lt. Robert E. Lee, most famous as his role for the South in the American Civil war. Eventually the plantation was taken over by Federal troops, and used as a mass burial ground during the Civil War.
We bought tickets for the trolley that stops at the major sites in the cemetary. First stop was the Kennedy gravesites. JFK's
Arlington National Cemetary
JFK grave in front of his eternal flame, Arlington House in the background grave is marked by an eternal flame, along with his wife Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and two infant children. Robert Kennedy's grave is marked with a simple white cross a few steps away. Just this August 2009, Senator Edward Kennedy was buried alongside his brothers.
From the Kennedy graves we walked over to the Tomb of Unknowns and the memorial amphitheatre. The Tomb of the Unknowns is watched around the clock by a sentinel from the Third U.S Infantry. The sentinal paces 21 steps in front of the tomb, pauses 21 seconds, then returns. A changing of the guard ceremony takes place every hour. Every memorial day there is a presidential wreath laid here.
Last trolley stop took us to Arlington House. It was built by George Washington Custis, and occupied by General Lee until he was forced to leave in the Civil War. There's not a whole lot to see right now, as its being restored to create a museum dedicated to Lee. From Arlington House, there is a great view of the cemetary below, and across the Potomac to the Lincoln memorial. The Pentagon is also visible from here, we were able to just make it out
in the mist.
From Arlington, we took the subway back to the National Mall, as we had a 4:30 entry time to go up the Washington Monument. We had a couple hours to kill, so we popped into the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. The great thing about touring Washington is that all the government buildings like the Archives, Capitol, and all the museums, are free. We had a quick lunch in the cafeteria, then had about an hour to whip around the museum and see the highlights. Some pretty cool stuff, like the inaugural dresses of some of the first ladies (Melissa's favorite), famous Abe's clothes and tophat, and one of the best ones being one we couldn't take a picture of. They have a 30' by 40' American Flag that survived the war of 1812 with the British. Story goes that as the soldiers were raising the flag over Baltimore harbour to celebrate, it inspired Francis Scott Key to write the song, and eventual anthem, "The Star Spangled Banner".
After zipping around the museum for an hour, we had to rush over to the Washington Monument to catch our entry time to go up. Something
I never realized before looking at going to Washington is that you can take an elevator 500 feet up to an observation level. Apparently Pat didn't realize this either, as she was a little shocked and slightly nervous due to her fear of heights and small spaces. A perfect combination to be heading 500 feet up an elevator shaft. Despite this, she made up to the top for some great views of Washington, even though the windows were a little dirty and foggy.
For the evening Melissa and I decided we were going to try the Lebanese restaurant (Lebanese Taverna) across the street from our hotel that we had read good things about. Not sure if Melissa's mom and dad were sick of us at this point, or a little scared of the Lebanese food, but they opted out of this one. We had some Lebanese wine, got to try some things that I couldn't pronounce (Kafta Harra, R'Kakat, Fatteh Blahmeh), overall really good food. Although Melissa didn't get too far out of the comfort zone and stuck with the familiar Shawarma.
Oct. 17 Last day of the trip. The main goal of the day
Washington Monument view
Looking east to the Capitol, the buildings on either side are all Smithsonian museums was the White House Garden tour. Basically two times a year (spring and fall), the White House allows a select number of visitors to come inside the gates of the White House and see the grounds. Fortunately our trip happened to fall on one of these weekends. You can't get passes ahead of time, so we got up early and headed to the White House Visitor Centre for about 8 am. We were able to get entry passes for the first tour of the day at 10am. Unfortunately it was also the worst weather we had seen, pretty heavy rain, and fairly chilly. After getting Doug his 3rd umbrella of the trip, we took a walk along the Roosevelt offices and stopped for a coffee and dry out a bit. We then walked along Pennsylvania Ave to see the front of the White House, and headed to get in line for the Garden tour.
After another security checkpoint, scanners, bag search, ect, we were inside the gates of the White House. We were able to walk right up to the back door, past the Rose Garden, Oval Office and Obama's addition the swingset to a viewpoint on the South
White House
From the South Lawn Lawn. There were a number of plainclothed secret service, along with a few gentleman with some pretty serious looking machine guns. A few people got off the walkway and were shouted at to stay off the grass, fortunately the snipers didn't take them out for this offence. We spent some time trying to get the "Xmas card shot" for Melissa's mom and dad, but with the conditions I'm not sure we succeeded. After a quick walk through the children's garden we exited out the west side of the grounds. It was really one of the highlights of Washington, even with the miserable weather.
From the White House we made our way down to the Holocaust Museum. It was the highest rated museum to see in Washington, so we planned on spending a good part of the day here. As one can imagine, it has some really horrific things to see, but an extremely well done museum. After going through it, its hard to imagine how some people can still claim to this day that the Holocaust is a hoax.
After lunch at the museum, we wanted to see the rest of the monuments we did not have a
White House
The south portico, entrance to the executive residence chance to see yet. From the museum we walked around the Tidal Basin to the Jefferson memorial, then continued on to the FDR and Korean War memorials. It was bit of a walk but worth it as they proved to be Melissa's favorites. Past the Lincoln and Vietnam memorials again, we walked straight north through the Georgetown University area to a metro stop.
For the last night in Washington, we thought we'd go out for a nicer meal, and tried a place call the New Heights Restaurant close to the hotel. The fact we had to wait at the bar for an hour to get a table was probably a good sign. A pretty good meal, but I had a bit of a swing and miss with my rabbit & black truffle rillette appetizer. The pan fried barramundi made up for it though.
Back to the hotel to pack up and get ready for our 4:45am shuttle pickup to get to Baltimore airport and back home.
Thanks for reading and look forward to the next edition of our blog - Cambodia and Thailand Feb 2010. Please note that we do accept all donations to further our travels
and continue to provide you with excellent reading opportunities.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.087s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 7; qc: 51; dbt: 0.05s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb