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Published: December 25th 2005
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All is well here, except for having the flu fairly badly now, but I'm guessing it's my own fault since each night consists of drinking my own weight in alcohol and eating again then!! and only getting 4 hours or so of sleep a night. Went to the Chemist and got some stuff though so hopefully it will help.
Nat and I went for a jog this morning, it wasn’t great but it was a start!
We travelled through Virginia on the way to D.C. Then it was onto Washington where we are now. We drove past the Pentagon, and it is massive!! They say that you could fit one of the US states in it and it would still only take up 1/5 of it!!
Once we arrived we went and did a night city tour and saw the Arlington National Cemetery which is home to all of the veteran graves including the Kennedy’s Gravesites and Challenger Memorial. We watched the changing of the Guard of the Unknown Soldiers grave - it’s very ceremonial and the men who guard it think of this as an honour and a privilege.
It is a very moving place and
the white crosses stretch for as far as the eye can see - there is activity all around as it is Memorial Day in a couple of day’s time. There are Servicemen and Ex-Servicemen everywhere and a mass amount of Harley bikes in town. We went and visited the other specific memorials for World Wars 1 and 2, Vietnam and Korea.
We also went to the Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, Roosevelt Memorial and the Washington Monument. We were walking past the body of water at the same angle as the movie and I was like ‘hey that’s out of Forrest Gump!!! Where he gives the speech whilst in uniform and Jenny runs out across the water’. We also saw the Capitol Building but it was getting very dark and I wanted to see some of the things again in the day light.
We went out to a club called Polyester and it was $15 cover charge and then all you can drink… I assure you they made no money that day!!! It was a late one….
The following day we didn’t do much in the morning and decided to get home delivery Thai at 5pm instead of
Washington Monument
View of the Monument going out… but as it was Saturday night we decided we’d better get motivated and go out as we had a rule about not piking out on Weekends and hey, you’re only in D.C once! We didn’t go to Georgetown with everyone else, so we decided to go to ‘Four Courts’ Irish Pub. Once there the lady at the bar started giving us shots and much beer was drunk! She asked us if we were from Contiki (apparently it was that obvious!!) and she told us that we were a day early and that they’d been expecting us! We met some locals and a good night was had by all!!
By the time we got back to our hotel it was 3am and we were hungry so we decided to eat the cold Thai at a balcony party while we talked shit!! It was excellent, we all swapped stories and Justin from the tour was with us and had us all in stitches!! We finally retired to bed at 4am… but it was one of the best nights yet!
The weather here is still lovely, although the last two afternoons here in Washington DC have been a little
Our Balcony Party
We don't look too bad for 4am!! windy and stormy.
We finally got motivated to do some more sightseeing. We went and saw some of the museums today including the Air & Space Museum and read up on the Wright Brothers and saw the first ‘plane’ they successfully flew. It flew for 59 seconds on the 17th of December 1903 on their fourth attempt.
We then went to the Smithsonian Castle then across to the Natural History Museum to see the Hope Diamond - every girls dream at 42.25 carrots!! It was beautiful!!
We were going to view the Declaration of Independence at the Archives but the queue was several hours long and it was so very hot, so I settled for the copy of the document I bought for a few dollars earlier and was content in the fact that I will read it later!!
We walked to the White House to take a photo and with my video camera you could see the sniper on the roof.
Once again we - Kylie, Nat and I were really tired so we retired to a Tavern for lunch - it turns out it’s a local for several famous people including Tom Selleck
& Danny DeVito who both have their own box there to hold their cups!
We went to the Hard Rock for Dinner tonight and this is like our last night really of the tour so will probably check out the bars again, I know it sounds like we are drinking out way across the US and I guess we kind of are, but we are still managing to take in the sites!!
Nat and I went to the internet café to check in with everybody at home. We were tired but decided to back it up with another night out! We felt like we had to!! It was supposed to be a few quiet drinks but we started playing ‘Buzz’ and no one wins with that!! We finally made our way home by 4am… God I need some sleep!!!!
We’ve all learnt that we can drink well after we thought we couldn’t anymore and I’m thankful for the practice I got in with the boys from Civil and Civic before I left!! Hehe!!
Of to New York in the morning….then I leave everyone to fly to the Bahamas to see my good friends Julia, Jon and
Capital Building
Nat & I at the Capital Building in Washington Nikita.
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