I'm in Washington DC!

I know my blogging has been terribly slack as of late but my new-school-year-back-in-San-Diego resolution is to keep it more up to date. So here goes!

At the moment I'm travelling with Nick Westbrook - a friend of mine from SA who now lives in New Zealand (and owns an All Black's shirt - the traitor!). He stayed with me in San Diego for a few days and now we're in Washington DC. I have to add the 'DC' bit because Washington's a state too all the way over on the west coast and if you just say 'Washington' then Americans assume you're talking about the state not the city. We're also going to New York and Boston!

We arrived in Washington bright and early (at about 6am) but then only got into the city a bit later because we had to wait for the bus which only starts at 8am on Sundays. Washington is revoltingly hot. It's humid and sticky and walking around Arlington yesterday I thought I was going to die! literally. We went to the tomb of the unknown soldier which is really impressive - we saw the changing of the watch. Then went to the Kennedy's graves. Nick then wanted to see the Iwo Jima memorial but I passed. I just couldn't handle the heat. Before Arlington we went to the Pentagon which was totally boring. It's just a building with lots of security. We couldn't even take pics of the 911 memorial because there was a security guard arresting some other tourists for taking pictures.

By that stage I was exhausted. I blame it on a lack of sleep and food and extreme heat! All I wanted to do was go back to the hostel and shower! Thankfully that's what we did. I felt soo good afterwards. Later in the evening we met up with Nick's friend, David, from SA at an Irish pub in Chinatown... go figure! It was fun though! As we were leaving I couldn't believe my eyes - across the street there was a Nando's! In Washington! I have pictures to prove it but will have to add them later when I can upload them.

Today was another busy day. We left late because Nick was being lazy this morning so we got going at about 10:30. Thankfully it didn't seem as hot as yesterday although it was still really hot and humid! We went up the tower in the old Post building first and got some very cool views of Washington. Then we went off to the Air and Space Museum. I really liked it! There were so many interesting exhibits. The hostel has a file of things to do in the area and they recommended the museum and the show 'Cosmic Collisions' in the Einstein planetarium there. It was absolutely fascinating! They showed a theory on how the moon was formed (a big meteorite smashes into a young earth and all the matter that's dislodged orbits the earth until it coalesces to form the moon!), how the dinosaurs were wiped out, the predicted future of the Milky Way (combining with Andromeda to form an even bigger galaxy) etc. It was also really good to sit down for a while! Afterwards we went back and looked at some more of the exhibits but then Nick decided he was over the Museum so we went and got some McDonalds for lunch and then went walking!

First stop was Capitol Hill and the Capitol - very impressive - followed by the Supreme Court (which let us in to have a look). There were some protesters outside. We're still not too sure what they were protesting but they all had red tape over their mouths with the word 'life' on it. We the walked back down the National Mall to the National Archives. We queued to get in but it moved fairly quickly so it wasn't so bad. Then we had to queue to see the Declaration of Independence in the Rotunda and that took forever! But at least it was airconditioned. The Rotunda houses the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The Constitution is in really good condition and still looks very impressive but the Declaration and Bill of Rights are both so faded from being displayed over the years that there's hardly anything to see! I asked the one security guard if what was in 'National Treasure' was true and the Declaration of Independence gets lowered into a vault below the Rotunda each night but my answer was 'I don't know nothing about no National Treasure' which was really funny! She obviously was avoiding the question entirely. Then we walked along to see Georgie's house. I was not impressed! The Americans are so paranoid about security that you can only see it from really far away and you have to look across the gardens so you only see the centre section. Buckingham Palace is much cooler!

On our way home we stopped for some dinner at... McDonalds - again! It's quite a record for me. I think I've only eaten McDonalds twice the whole time I've been in San Diego and now it was twice in one day! But it was cheap :-) While we were eating we saw a secret service motorcade go past then when we were walking back they were all parked just down the street on the corner by a restaurant. I'm not too sure who the dude was who was being escourted but he must have been pretty important! He cracked 2 police cars and 4 secret service SUV's and then there were 2 normal black sedans. So we stopped and took pictures of course!

It was sooo good to get back to the hostel - my feet were officially dead by that stage. Tomorrow I think we're going to see Mount Vernon (George Washinton's home) and then museums in the afternoon. I want to go back to the Air and Space Museum and then I just discovered that the National Gallery of Art has a couple of Van Gogh's so I want to see those too!