The National Zoo We didn't bother with the metro today and used the parking at the zoo, not realising this would cost us $20 for the day. But at least the zoo was free, Washington National Zoo is part of the Smithsonian institute and is thought to be the 2nd best zoo in the USA. (second to San Diego Zoo apparently) and it is quite amazing, we easily spent the whole day looking at all the animals on show and still didn't see everything. The highlights included:...

Library of Congress. We got up and headed to the metro stop at about 10.30am. Since it took about an hour to get to Downtown we arrived at about midday and headed to the Capitol which is where congress meets. This building also houses the senate and the Supreme court. After passing through security and being forced to throw away our body spray and raisins?? we then embarked on a free tour of the building. The 45 mins tour started with a short introductory vide...

Washington We spent most of the day driving, finally arriving in a tourist rest area around 4 o'clock where the extremely helpful man gave us several free maps and brochures as well as some info on how to use the metro in Washington which would be substantially cheaper than parking in the centre of town. The rest stop also had free WIFI so we took this opportunity to check our e-mails, have some dinner and upload some blogs from New York. At about 7 we set off...