Washington D.C.

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Hello all. I've (Tim) taken over blogging duties from Rob as his laptop has died, temporarily we hope! Unfortunately that means no photos for now.<br style="color:� font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="color:� font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" />We had a good second day in San Francisco. After breakfast at the hotel, we took a bus up to Golden Gate Park to visit the California Academy of Science, where we spent much of the rest of the day. It's housed in a really good building with a "green" roof and has a really interesting mix of natural history (including an aquarium with coral reefs etc and a rain forest) alongside other sciency stuff! We were pretty tired when we got back to the hotel, so we stayed in our apartment and the hotel staff organised us a Chinese takeaway and a copy of Escape from Alcatraz starring Clint Eastwood on DVD.<br style="color:� font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="color:� font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" />We were up early yesterday, to get to the airport for a 5 hr flight to Washington DC. All fine though don't think much of United Airlines, who provided little in the way of food (ie nothing) and not much in the way of beverages. They also seemed to manage to allocate everyone seat numbers completely randomly, so we all had to sit separately, and it seemed lots of other people did too! Diana sat next to a lovely lady on a business trip whose younger sister had just had a baby delivered prematurely at 36 weeks for pre-eclampsia. The baby is now home and doing well but they have just received a bill for $240 000 for the NICU costs and do not know if their insurance will cover it. Maybe the NHS is good after all! We arrived at our hotel in Washington at about 8.30, given the 3 hr time change.<br style="color:� font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="color:� font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" />Today was our first day in Washington. After a leisurely start and breakfast in the hotel, we caught the metro to the National Mall as the strip from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial is called. In amongst all the government offices etc, are the Smithsonian museums, and we went to the Air and Space museum this morning. Very good. We then walked down to the Lincoln Memorial and round to the White House. When I was last here, you could go inside the White House, FBI and Pentagon, but all much more difficult now and requires a letter from your senator etc. By the way, all the Smithsonian museums are free, and all set up in the first place by an Englishman (Smithson) who donated $500,000 in the 1820s having never been to America (Jack looked this up and it's apparently the equivalent of about $8bn today!).<br style="color:� font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="color:� font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" />Just off to eat!

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Comments

[Mark Dinwoodie]

All sounds great fun and makes us envious! Best wishes to you all from the Dinwoodies