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| Washington Monument |
Did you know that D.C. stands for: District of Colombia? Well, now you do!
The capital of the USA is actually more or less a state on its own, counting up
to (only?) 600.000 inhabitants, of which the most famous one is, at the moment,
Barack Muhammed Obama (and his dog Bo).
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| Arlington Cemetary |
The same day of our +3400 miles of
travelling, we went from the airport straight to Arlington Cemetary. This cemetery, + 600 acres wide, hosts the graves of numerous American
soldiers (and family members) who have died, “serving their country” as they
say, from the Civil War, over WWI & WWI, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and
Iraq. It’s really impressive how many people lay here and if you wander around
in this, actually beautiful park, you wonder how Americans can still not be fed
up with “war-making” as we Europeans do.
A to-do here is for sure the Change
of the Guards who protect the grave of the Unknown Soldier. Also JFK is
buried here, but I didn’t have the chance to see that one, pitty…
After the cemetery we went to the Holiday Inn hotel, at less than 10
blocks from the White House. Tired as we were, went for dinner and straight to
bed at about 10.30P.M. After all, with the time change it was 4.30A.M. for us…
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| Mechelse at The White House |
Sunday we got up and left for the
City Tour. I am not going to bore you with how freakingly and insanely awesome it was to see all these “famous
from the movies”-buildings in real time! The White House, Washington Monument,
Lincoln Memorial, spot where Martin Luther King held his famous “I have a dream” speech, Korean War
veteran Memorial, WWI & WWII memorial, etc. What is great is that all these
locations are all in or around one big park, called The Mall, and they are all super well kept and free!! So cool to go
inside the museums and learn about all they have. Really worthwhile and I
would’ve loved to have a day extra in D.C. to be able to visit more of them!
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| Sebastian and me in front of The Capitol |
When arriving at Capitol, I had left
the Belgian team and was thus alone, I met up with Sebastian! My German
roommate from Rennes (France)! After hanging out a bit at the Capitol, we
visited the Air & Space Museum and the National History Museum. We hang out
a bit at the beautiful park (The Mall) and then Seba already had to leave as he
was going to have dinner with his host sister (he had been on an AFS to the USA
in 2006-2007).
As I didn’t feel like going back to
the hotel yet, I continued my walkabout alone and passed by the FBI Building,
the International Spy Museum (dafuq..), the Hard Rock Café and Macy’s. After
that, I headed back to the hotel and met up with the Belgian team, quickly took
a shower (and put on an insanely amount of after sun), and together we went to
China Town where we had a delicious Chinese Meal. [Note to myself: you’ve been
in the USA for +24hours and still no junk food, duuuude!]. After dinner we headed back to the hotel and
went to bed, my Dutch roommate came in late night, and I didn’t even notice
that, so I must be really tired at the moment…
Monday we’re heading for Baltimore.
An update about that will, hopefully follow soon.
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| Team Belgium at Lincoln Memorial |
Oh, and by the way, on Sunday it was
27°C and it’s going to get even hotter in the next few days!! And yes mom & dad, I am already terribly
sunburned but I have bought myself some American after sunscreen.
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