Washington

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What a drive.. We figured we would be able to get to Washington with only the googlemaps directions, well, this was easier said than done.. Eventually, after 11 hours of driving we arrived in Washington.. We stayed over at the place of friends of Mat's mother, very cordial people, who gave us a quick tour of Washington by night after a dinner that has almost killed me.. (just for the record: because of the quantity, not the quality.. it was so good to have a 'home-made' meal again..)

Unfortunately we only had the next morning to explore Washington a bit. Luckily most interesting things were located together in the 'mall' (we expected stores, however, none of this.. 😉). This 'mall-area' is amazing, it's like one big parc or something. No normal stores, cafe's, or anything, a few fast food stands and for the rest: a lot of official buidlings. Plenty museums, memorials, Capitol hill, and of course the White House. It's all very beautiful and impressive, very cool to see in real life. What's very nice is that most of the museums are free! We unfortunately didn't have time to visit them, but Mat said he was planning to go back for a week once and visit all museums then (haha, not that I believe that, he's not more of a cultural oriented type than me, but I think at the moment he was very convinced of it himself).

Despite this all, in a way this all also appeared a bit unusual to me.. It's really like one big official, a bit show-off area, not a place where people live. And most buildings are made in a style originating from a time long before the time they were actually build.. Hmm, I guess that last thing is pretty American, I noticed this more often. I think many Americans don't even realize there national prides are often just copies of something European 😉..

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