Just returned from Washington DC last night where I spent
the long weekend (as it is labour weekend). We drove there in a rental car
which interestingly enough was cheaper than a bus, even though the guy who was
driving us was only 21. There were 5 of us in total, all exchange students.
We arrived Friday night and checked in to our hotel. Saturday morning we got up and after breakfast headed out on the train to the
White House. It was smaller than I expected but still quite impressive. There
were a lot of crazy types standing in front of it protesting various things and
warning us of the impending apocalypse.
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| The White House |
After that we went to the Smithsonian Natural History
Museum. It was huge and we didn't have time to see everything, but they had a
very impressive collection of various rocks and minerals and a taxidermy
collection of pretty much every animal in existence.
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| Library of Congress |
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| Inside the Library of Congress |
This took us through to dinner. We ate at a nice Chinese
restaurant and then went off to see the Washington monument at night- much
bigger than I thought it was, and then the Lincoln memorial. Both were perhaps
more impressive at night as they stood out more and were completely lit up.
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| The Lincoln Memorial |
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| Six metre high Lincoln |
We made it back to our hotel very late that night and I was
feeling quite sick (I have somehow managed to catch a cold) so I opted out of
the early morning trip up the Washington monument- apparently you can take an
elevator up it and get some nice views of DC. The others got up at 6 to go wait
in line for it while I slept in a bit to try and feel a bit better. The
pictures they took were very impressive but I think it was worth it for me to
have the extra rest.
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| The Washington Monument |
We then had brunch and hopped in the car off to the zoo. This was an absolutely massive free zoo with basically every animal imaginable
(including a kiwi!) though a lot of them were asleep, understandably as it was
incredibly hot (31-32 degrees C). By the end of this I was feeling dreadful so
they dropped me off at the hotel while they went off to another museum. I got
about 12 hours sleep which was nice but apparently the museum was really good
so it was a shame to miss that.
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| Add caption |
On Monday we stopped off at the Arlington National Cemetery,
where over 400,000 US soldiers are buried, as well as many notable people such
as JFK and his brothers. It's also the site of America's Tomb of the Unknown
Warrior and the Iwo Jima statue.
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| Iwo Jima Statue |
After this we headed home and arrived about 9 pm.
All together a very interesting trip, though would have been
much better if I weren't so sick!
