Washington day 4

This morning we had to pack and check out before we could go so we nearly ended up missing the walking tour of the DC Monuments that the hostel arranges (for free!!). Luckily we caught up with them just down the road from the hostel. The guide was awesome - he was super knowledgeable and full of interesting facts but wow - he walked fast! I like staying near the front of a tour group so when I turned around a couple of times all I could see was this long line of people strung out behind me!

The major stops (not including the random statues and buildings) were the White House (Washington was the only President not to live in it), the Washington monument (which you can actually go up in), the Jefferson Memorial (which was designed to resemble the Pantheon), the FDR memorial (more later...), the Lincoln Memorial (modelled on the Parthenon), the Korean War Memorial (one of the most interesting) and the Vietnam Memorial (which has the names of all 58000 people who died in Vietnam. Our guide was a Vietnam veteran). Our guide spoke a lot about all the men and what they did. I particularly liked the FDR memorial and I was really impressed with everything he accomplished that is until I learned that he was the one who denied Jews entrance to America in WWII.

After the tour my feet were dying (again) so we parked off on a bench in the park area between the memorials and watched the world go by. There were lots of squirrels around us and our guide had mentioned that they were really tame and would eat out of your hand. So off I went to buy something to feed the squirrels with (trail mix). I was feeding them peanuts and they were really cute until one of them grabbed the peanut and then bit my finger - hard! So I was bleeding all over the show and Nick was shaking his head with an 'I-told-you-so' expression on his face. I maintain that it's not my fault my finger looked like a peanut and the squirrels were really cute!

After getting that little situation under control we headed off for the WWII memorial and just relaxed with our feet in the fountain. I figured we weren't doing anything wrong because the sign said no coins and no wading but nothing about feet! We then headed off to the Holocaust Museum which was excellent. I think Nick got a bit bored because he disappeared ahead of me and I found him waiting on the steps at the end for me looking a little exasperated. But really! What did he expect? - I wasn't about to motor through a place like that. I really liked that it focused on so many of the facts and told the whole story as well as showing elements of the horror - like piles of shoes from Aushwitz and photos of all the human hair that was shaved off before they sent people to the ovens and then sold (gross!)

We're leaving for NY at 11pm tonight and arrive at some ungodly hour in the very early morning.