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Chocolate order
In the dining car on train from New York to Washington Hello everyone from rainy(?) Washington DC. Barack Obama sends his regards.
First, do you want to hear about our train trip? Do you?
Well, after the initial dramas of getting on and getting a seat we all agreed that it came at the perfect time and we'd definitely do it again. The train took about three hours and we spent the time reading, playing on iPads, updating the blog, having a snooze and just watching the world go by. The girls liked the walk up to the dining car to buy some chocolate.
Because we have so many suit cases now it was a pain in the arse getting on and finding room for them all so next time we will be better prepared.
After a leisurely trip we arrived at Union Station and while sorting out our bags a red cap (employees of the station) rocked up in a golf buggy, loaded all of our bags on the platform and drove us all straight to the taxi rank. A tip was payable but it saved us a lot of stuffing around so this is the sort of tip
Beautiful scenery
There were some great sites from the train. we are happy to pay.
We arrived at our hotel after a bit of an adventure (the Washington marathon had just finished and the Wizards basketball team were playing, so roads were closed). We clearly thought that there must have been some mistake with our hotel. This hotel was far too swish for us. But no. There wasn't any mistake, this would be our home for the next few days. The hotel had been recommended by Nicole Grant, lovely wife of Dave and she deserves a big thank you. Maybe Dave can take her out for tea or something.
The girls instantly wanted to stay longer even before we saw our room. Which was....huge! The girls spent no time at all spreading their crap all over the floor and it felt like home. The internal garden was beautiful day & night.
The weather was superb and as we had arrived around lunchtime we thought we'd go for a walk and have some lunch. After an interesting lunch (the food looked quite different to the description) we wandered into the main part of town. While this was a Sunday and we expected
it to be a little quiet the dramatic change in the atmosphere after New York was stark. Washington was simply stunning. There are wide tree lined roads, some very beautiful architecture and the cars aren't on a mission to run you down!
After a very pleasant stroll we suddenly found ourselves outside the White House. What a site; for several reasons! The enormity and importance of the place is acknowledged immediately. There are cops and security everywhere. And,...there's also plenty of nut jobs. Walking up to the White House we could here some loud speaking and thought that there must be a rally on. However it was one dude, holding two megaphones going on and on and on about Jesus. I'll give him this. He had a fair set of lungs on him because he didn't stop!... Until another group of zealots appeared to go up to him to tell him to shut up, because I t was their turn to start rambling! Then a woman walked all along the White House fence and off into the distance singing 'liar, liar, liar' at the top of her voice. We spoke with a police woman there and she
Luxury
Our hotel room in Washington advised that it was their First Amendment Right to do whatever they wanted..until 10:00pm: then they have to be quiet. What a country!
After leaving the White House singing the Jesus chant to the girls (it was quite catchy...) we continued to wander around town and the gardens stopping at the Washington monument and National War Memorial and finally made it back to our hotel in late afternoon. After a quick wash it was out to dinner. Washington is also a large University town and there were plenty of young people out and about.
We wandered into a bar called Stoneys and there were served by a young waiter called Brock who one of my girls will marry one day if I have any say in it. During nights he is a waiter. During the day he is doing his MBA majoring in Collegiate Sports Administration. He also works (for free) at Maryland University in their football operations department. He ultimately wants to be a football coach or team director. He was smart, extremely pleasant, and at 23 years old had his head screwed on right. Considering that at 23 I had trouble tying
One nut job
This is all we could hear on our way to the White House my shoelaces (especially after many beers) this bloke was great. His girlfriend is studying law at George Washington University so will have to be knocked off or something.
The next day we hit the town. Jumping on another hop on hop off bus we did it all. Washington is only one of three capital towns set up for exactly that reason. Brasilia and Canberra are the two others. We've probably said this plenty of times before there is so much to see. From the monuments and memorials to the museums to the gardens and even the old parts of town. And the people? They spoke with us! Nicely!
After a very full day, and with the rain coming down, we ended up back at Union Train Station (or Unicorn Station as Charlize calls it) and hailed a cab. And what happened? The driver starting a conversation with us. He talked to the girls told us about his family and we had a great time. He got a big fat tip. That's for sure.
The next day was quite wet so we decided to hit the Smithsonians. We started off at the
Air and Space museum which was simply huge and still only showed around 10% of their pieces. The other 90% is in a huge hangar (or two) at the airport.
We joined a tour led by a very enthusiastic volunteer and learned a lot about the history of flight including the space race, the demonstration including all the original planes and spacecraft.
Next, it was off to the National Art Gallery where paintings from Da Vinci, Monet and Van Gogh are on display. The bag lockers were full and you weren't allowed to carry backpacks in the gallery (not for security, more so that you didn't knock over expensive statues..) so I stayed outside while Lisa and the girls looked inside. When they returned I had a quick tour with Charlize. The paintings were very nice however I'm a bit more of a modern art fan. If you've seen one painted garden of flowers you've pretty much seen them all in my opinion.
Next on the list was the Museum of American History. This was great in that there was quite a bit of interactive stuff and really interesting pieces. The
Free beer for all!!!
Signing some new laws girls loved seeing Dorothy's shoes from Wizard of Oz and Harry Potters cloak. They also enjoyed all the First Ladies dresses from the past years up to Michelle Obama's dress she wore at the last inauguration. I enjoyed describing to the girls what a Walkman was and seeing a 1940's caravan all decked out.
I think we did very well knocking over three of the many Smithsonians and just before closing we staggered out...to....Walmart again. Apparently cosmetics are a fraction of the price you pay in Australia so Lisa was going to stock up. Those reading our previous blogs would have known how upset I was that there were no freaks the last time we visited a Walmart so I was very pleased when I saw a dude at a checkout with a comb just sitting in his hair. Not exactly freakish but worth the visit all the same.
We grabbed a cab back towards our hotel and stopped in for dinner at Stoneys, the place we met the future football coach. Lo and behold he was there again and we had another great chat. He was telling us what you had to do
to get to a coaching role, which is basically work for free for two to three years then hopefully pick up an assistants gig and advance from there. He wants to coach college football, not NFL. The head coach at a college football team makes around $2.5m per year. An assistant up to $500k. No wonder he's so dedicated! Still happy for one of the girls to marry him!
After dinner we strolled the two blocks back to the hotel to enjoy a cocktail, mocktails and beer in the bar. The staff were great with all of us, especially the girls and the place, as we've said before was very swish.
After New York, Washington was exactly what we needed. It was quieter, friendlier and allowed us to refresh somewhat after going non-stop for around three weeks now. This is another city that we'd add to our revisit list.
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Jane
non-member comment
Great photos
Hi guys, it looks like you are having such a great time. Your blogs are very funny Lisa and very informative. We will be off to Hawaii on the 10-25 may, so I will contact you after that for the cards.