On the way to washington we stopped at a national park called "shenandoah" we had a picnic here and made a few picture stops. It was here we saw a wild black bear! It was very exciting ! It wasnt to far away from us so i got some really good video footage! And when everyone went back to the van me and luke stayed for a few more minutes and it pounced to get a bird! It was so lovely seeing a wild bear, we was very happy.
We were now on the way to our last camping destination....washington DC! We could not wait :) the journey getting here was really really loooong ! Well it felt long but was only about 5 hours, but being in the bus was really getting to us, and having to listen to the same country music for 5 days was making me want to burst my own eardrums ! Not only that, about an hour from the camp ground we were stuck in traffic and the little girls sitting at the front decided to put on some really appaling music up really load and sing and dance to it! After being stuck in this van for the best part of 3 weeks i can assure you it had passed the point of being able to ignore it and look away! It really was like being on a school trip and we were the adults! We had well and truly had enough. Just picutre this.....struck in grid lock traffice having already been on the bus for hours, listening to a indian version of the pussycat dolls song "jai ho" on loud! With all the girls dancing and shouting! I feel i neednt say anymore!
We arrived after what seemed like an eternity in traffic! And we just immediately put our tent up and retreated there! I also went for a wonder to reception to get some info on the buses to the city and maps etc, dylon hadn't given us any info yet and we wanted to plan our day, luckily we went up there and looked as we had to get a metro card which is like a oyster card, the buses take cash but its cheaper with a metro card but the trains only accept these cards and the place we were staying were selling them for $10, $2 for the card and then $8 credit ! It was the best deal as buying them at the station was more expensive ! So me, luke and jasmin got ours ! We did not want to rely on dylon for nothing. It was the groups last dinner together....like we really gave a shit about that ! and yet again the group that was cooking had let the 18 year old decide what to cook, and so we had a traditional german meal which was pasta with tiny pieces of ham with egg in it! And she added tiny pieces of peppers for the vegatarians! Yes that its.....plain pasta, no sauce, no salad, a tiny bowel full of dry pasta! How can it be we have paid for most of our meals and get a Tiny bowel of pasta....dry! If he insists in letting the groups do the shopping he should at least check theres enough food for everyone and have some input to make sure its a adequate meal! Its hard to cook for 13 people let alone ensure you have enough food! Basically it was shit! After dinner and before we went out at 20.30 dylon decided to take this chance to give us some info for the next day.....he said he would leave at 9am to take people to the arlington cemetary and then drop them at the mall and then arrange a group dinner but he didnt know a time or place yet so if you werent going to go with him you basically wouldnt be going to dinner! He also gave a Bit of info on the public tranport but no where near enough info for you to feel confident to go on your own! I am so glad we went up to reception to get some info as they were so helpful, and also the reception shuts at 8pm so anyone that wanted a metro card for the next day would be fucked! So so useless! However we knew the group would play follow the leader and go with "dil dil!" As they called him!
....putting up the tent for the last time. Dylon was taking the group to the lincoln memorial that evening as it looks different at night, we didnt really want to go, but we wanted to see it in the dark, we didnt leave until 8.30 and it took 30 minutes to get there! And when we arrived it was absolutely heaving with tours, school trips etc you just couldnt move! Definately what we needed after our "lovely" drive! You just couldnt get a good picture and i wasquickly loosing my temper we had a little wonder but just wanted to go back to camp go to bed and have a day on our own. When we eventually left and got back it was 23.00 and we just went to bed, i had a pretty shit sleep i think i was just mega stress and angry about the days happenings.
Me, luke and jasmin were up and out at 7.30am! Everyone was still sound asleep! We got the 7.36 bus and were very excited about our day without the group and van! It was about an hours journey door to door and our first stop would be the pentagon memorial site. When we got off the train we had to walk half way around the pentagon to get to the memorial, and you were not allowed to take pics anywhere on the pentagon site it was very strict! Luke thought the pentagon was smaller then he imagined, it was quite large in scale but not so tall it also wasnt as guraded as we thought it would be, we didnt see inside tho which i assume is much more guarded, we walked around to the pentagon memorial for 911, we were allowed to take pics here so we took a few.....
Visiting a place like this memorial is quite emotional, it really makes you think about those poor families that have lost there loved ones, there was a few children lost ....3 years of age.... so so sad that they never got a chance at life :( it was really nice what the pentagon had done, its hard to explain but there was a wall and about one meter apart from each other were different years and in a line from them were all the people that had died that were born in that year and each person had a little water feature, its so hard to explain. But a beautiful memorial.
Our next stop would be the arlington cemetary to see the resting place of JF Kennedy and family. When we arrived here it was just starting to get busy with tours, schools etc, so we took a relatively fast walk to the resting place and took some pics but we couldnt really stand and appreciate what we were looking at as there were to many people, but it was nice seeing it, as we walked back down we took a moment to just take in all the fallen soldiers that were buried here, there were hundreds if not thousands and there was even a older couple sitting by a grave obviously mourning what i can only assume was there child. It was very sad and really puts in perspective what the army does for us, and that freedom hasnt always been free....soldiers then and now fought a hard battle for us to be free and we should appreciate it, i just looked on and thought of all the familys of these poor people that are now in mourning for a loved one. Travelling USA had made me understand more of why americans are so patriotic.
As we walked out of the cemetary we passed the group just entering, it was almost 10am! It made us glad did not wait for the group and get a lift with dil dil! As they obviously hadnt left at 9am and they were only just entering the cemetary we had done that and the pentagon and were now going onto the next thing! We decided to walk back to the Lincoln memorial as we wanted to see it in the day. We walked across the bridge and it was right in front of us, is was so beautiful in the day and less crowded, still busy but not so bad ! The washington monument looked great aswell....
We from here decided we would walk to the martin lutha king jr memorial, then to the world war two memorial. Martin lutha king memorial was really nice and had lots of nice words there, there was a school band going to play there at some point as it was going to be memorial day on sunday, so it was a weekend of celebrations, which would explain the crowds! We next went to the world war two memorial where there was also some beautiful words and lovely features.
We were really close to the washington monument so we just went and took a couple of pics but didnt go right up to it, as we got a glimpse of the white house from here and wanted to go and see that, i have got to say it looked pretty small from where we were standing! We went along to the visiter center first and got a couple of leaflets and had a look around, we then went as close as we could to it and we just could not believe how small it was, the movies made this place look huge, it was so small i hope in the pics you see how small it is.....
Having seen quite a lot already and walked pretty far we were ready to eat lunch, so we had a wonder into the town and tried to find somewhere, we wanted a dennys ! But there wasnt one in the city! So we found this other place called..."ollies trolley" it was a old fashioned burger place with really old artifacts in the seating area like a old coke machine, candy floss machine, old rocking horse, old pram and some other bits, we thought it looked nice! Luke ordered a chilli, cheese burger which he said was ok, i ordered large fries to share and a salad which sounded great, but what they seved me was a plate of lettuce with mushrooms! I couldnt believe it and i took it back and they thought i was saying no mushrooms so he proceded to take the mushrooms off with his hands! And then i explained it was missing most of what was advertised.....tomato, onion, carrot, croutons, cucumber! He just started to dump stuff on it! Including the mushrooms he had just taken off! I told them i didnt want it and got a refund! Dissapointed :( oh well we walked on past the old post office and FBI building and towards the national archives.
I really wanted to see the declaration of independence at the national archives, mostly because the film national treasure! We didnt have time to look around everywhere so just went to where the declaration was, we werent allowed to take pics or video either which was a shame, it was Very interesting to read the things around the declaration, we also saw the constitution and bill of rights. Just a shame we couldnt stay there longer, but there was so much to see and do we had to move onto the next thing.
It was 2pm already and we wanted to see some of the museums and jasmin wanted to go to the capitol building, so we split up at this point, as things shut at 5-5.30pm and we were running out of time. Me and luke first went to the air and space museum, which was really interesting, we probly looked at half the stuff in there, we was in there just over an hour so we did pretty well! We read some really interesting stuff on the wright brothers who together basically discovered the art of aviation, we read lots of stuff on the different space missions and the very last thing we saw was a video and read some info on the guy that done the highest freefall in history ! It was quite something to watch.
Next we went onto the national history museum, and i was excited as i thought i would walk in and see a t rex right in the middle of the atrium like in the film "night in the museum!" But when we walked in "rexie" wasnt there! But we were greeted by a elephant! Which i didnt mind! I love natural history museums our planet and all that live there fascinate me so we spent about an hour in here and saw as much as we could. It was around 17.15 when we left and we were so tired, we just wanted to get something quick to eat and get back to camp to rest our aching feet. We went to the ronald regan building food court and were joined by about 300 high school students on their school trips having dinner! Which was nice and just what we wanted! We wanted to get a subway but there was about 50 kids queing! So i got a jacket potato which was gorgeous with cheese, mushrooms and sour cream and luke had a turkey and cranberry sandwich and then we decided to head back.
When we arrived back jasmin was there she got back about 30 minutes before us and the van was there but dylon wasnt, so we assumed he had got public transport so he could drink, another act of a good guide! We just showered, chatted to jasmin and went to bed, we just wanted this last night camping to be over! It was a bit windy tonight so i had to have my hot water bottle! We heard the group come back and they were still up at 1am as i woke up thinking it was morning because i could hear them! We werent leaving until 9am the next day, we just wanted to get up and get to new york! We knew we wouldnt leave at that time, all we knew was we had to get up pack up and make breaky we had been told nothing else! Lets see what happens in the morning!!
We got up early like we normally do and to my horror most of the group were up! I didnt know why this had occurred but just got on with what we were doing! We were made aware that dylon had to check all the tents before they went down so luke swept it and then we put it down after dylons approval! And then made lunch and breakfast. Everyone started to clean everything, like the contaner lids for the boxes the food was stored in, all the utensils just everything, we had no idea what was going on! It hadnt really occurred to us we would have to get everything out of the boxes to re clean it all! We werent made aware of this plan! As usual the group had obviously been told without us there! We helped a bit but we mostly lost all patience and just wanted to leave and get to new york! we set off gone 10am! (An absolute joke!) bring on new york!!
We absolutely loved washington DC city, it had a really nice vibe about it and there was so much to do We loved exploring the city and really want to return to explore more. We feel very lucky to have visited the capital of the united stated of america!
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