Weather: Hot, hot, hot - sunny and hot.
After breakfast this morning, we were off to the city. As it was Saturday, traffic was almost non-existant. Almost.
Tomorrow, we're off to Amish country. Should be interesting.
 |
| The Capitol building |
Then it was time for the Lincoln Memorial. Heaps of people here but plenty of time and room to take our photos of good old Lincoln.
Then it was back on the bus bound for a World War II memorial and all four Vietnam War memorials - flag pole, soldiers statue, memorial wall and women in war statue.
 |
| The White House - North side |
We drove around the cemetery on their special buses where our first stop - for 8 minutes - was at the John F Kennedy, Jackie Kennedy and their son's burial ground. Further towards the left, marked with simple white crosses , was where John Kennedy's brothers are buried. John and his family get plaques and an "eternal flame" and his brothers get small plaques with a white cross marking their spots.
A lady in our group named Rosa who is also travelling on her own just managed to re-catch the bus as it was getting ready to leave.
Our next stop was the 11:30am Changing of the Guard at the Unknown Soldier memorial. It was awsome. Nothing like the pomp and ceremony of the one in London. Just three soldiers involved changing duties.
We were told that we should not get off at Robert E Lee's house which was the next stop but, as Rosa and I had an hour and a half still to go, we decided to get out and see the house. What a waste of time. It was bare - no furniture and it was in disrepair. There were photos of what the rooms would've looked like but that was all. There is a great view of Washington from up there though.
As the house was tiny and only took about 5 minutes to view we had plenty of time. We looked around a bit then decided to go back to the bus early. When the bus arrived, we found our tour director telling the rest of our group not to get out at the house. We got on and she didn't look too happy with us.
We then boarded our bus and headed off for the Smithsonian Museums. Now, I thought it was only one building but discovered that all the museums are part of the Smithsonian. This is where we found the school kids yet again - thousands of them!! Everywhere!!!
 |
| Iowa Jima memorial |
I went into the museum for about 10 minutes. It was pretty small and I didn't find anything really interesting. Plus, I wanted to get out and explore.
I left the museum and walked around taking pictures of anything that took my interest. Had a quick lunch and sat for a while. Then it was off towards the Washington Monument. As Washington DC had an earthquake last August, this was closed to the public as it was slightly damaged. While I was taking photos, I had a glimpse of the Jefferson Memorial so I made my way over to take even more photos. Then it was time to make my way over to my pick-up point back at the American History museum.
We then went back to the hotel, freshened up and made our way over to our restaurant - Carmine's - for dinner. We first stopped for a photo opportunity at the Iowa Jima memorial - statue made from the famous picture of the 6 American soldiers raising the American flag.
When we finally made it to our restaurant, it was chaos - they had set up two tables in two separate rooms for only 31 people. We were 39. Our tour director was not happy. So they put the first 15 people in the room that was prepared and I was a part of this group. Lucky I was because, after about 5 minutes of sitting, I went to the bar to get a drink and found that the others still weren't seated as their table wasn't even ready.
Apparently, they had a wedding on so they had taken over our original room. During our meal, we could see our tour director having "words" with the manager of the restaurant.
The meal was huge! It was served "family style" which means that you all sit on a long table and platters of food are brought in to share. We started with a Ceaser salad, then spaghetti bolognase, then tortellini, then... chicken marsala then... chicken parmagiana then .... yep, even more food .... dessert platter of casata, tiramisu, chocolate ice cream, chocolate cake and fruit. It was soooooooo much food! I fnished at the pasta and, luckily, left room for dessert .... just. I just managed to eat the fruit and left the chocolate stuff for everyone else. It was waaaaay too much food.
It was then time to recover back at our hotel for the night.
 |
| Lincoln Memorial |
