Day 9 -Travel to Wahington DC

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The alarm went off at 7:00 am. It was about time, The group needed a rest. After havng breakfast and our morning devotional, we departed to tha Amish market. Unfurtunately it was closed, The Amish dedicate Sunday to their Bible studies and services, We dedided to take the group photo at this place.

We ate lunch in the Hershey factory. This place shows in a Disney like environment, the process used to make milk chocolate, It has a 3D show that the kid love it as well as a store to sell all kinds of chocolate memorabilia and products. For chocolate fans this is paradise.

After lunch, we departed toward Washington DC. An early arrival allow us to see the Jefferson Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, the Vietnam and Kores war memorials.

Thomas Jefferson was the third president of the United States. He is the author of the Declaration of Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom and father of the University of Virginia. Jefferson ideas still survive today, His beliefs in the right of man and a goverment derived from the peole, in fredom of religion and the separation between church and state, and in education available for all are still the very basic of democracy. Jefferson was reprared in several areas, He was known to be a political philosopher, architect, musician, book collector, scientist, horticulturist, diplomat, inventor and inventor. He designed and oversaw the construction of his home, Monticello. The monument to Jefferson is directly south of the White House, It was inaugurated by President Franlyn D Roosevelt on April 13,1943 on the 200th aniversary of his birth.

The Linciln memorial gegan construction in 1914 and it was completed in 1922. Thirty six columns sustain the ceiling. Each column represents the states of the Union at Lincoln death. By the time the building was complete, 12 new states had being accepted in the Union. Their names are written in the exterior attic walls. Inside the building a huge statue of President Lincoln seated is found in the center. In the walls you can read it famous Gettysberg Address. President Lincoln was against slavery. After his inauguration, 7 souther states seceded the Union and for a Confederation, Lincoln was ready to preserve the Union at all cause, and as a result the United States confronted a civil war.The bloody war lastedfour years. In 1865 Lincoln obtained Congressional apporval to pass the 13th Ammendment to the Constitutiion that abolished slavery. He was shot while attending a show in the Ford theater. He died the next day, six days after Generla Robert Lee surrendered.

The Vietnam memorial is a big wall caontaining the over 54000 soldiers kill in action during the conflict. A atatue of three soldiers, one white, one black and one American preceded the wall. The Korean memorial is composed of 19 soldiers position in such a way that they seem to be on a patrol . There is also a black wall covering one of the sides of the memorial who remember the over 58,000 soldiers kill in action during this war.

Our trip ended that nght with a short visit to the White House. The White House is the place where the President leaves, Once a president retires the bedroom used by him is no longer used and preserved. The building is connected by a tunnel to Capitol Hill and to the Treasury Department. The name White HOuse came after the British burned the house in the War of 1812. The walls were cover with lime to cover the burned marks gaving the white appereance. Since then the people started to call the building White House.

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