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After arriving around 3.30pm by bus to Washington DC and then catching a taxi out to our hotel, we settled in to our new home for the next 5 days. Our room at the River Inn was a large and comfy place that included a kitchenette. Our hotel is the middle of GWU and hospital so we thought we'd go for a walk around and see what area of Foggy Bottom had to offer. We walked down the road past the metro station to find one of the best supermarkets we've ever seen called Wholefoods Supermarket. This place is a huge and offers the best organic range of food we've ever seen. Leah even made her own peanut butter using a machine that crushes peanuts! Doesn't get much fresher then that! We bought some food and drinks for the next 5 days and headed back to hotel around 8pm to ready ourselves for the onslaught of sight seeing.
We woke up feeling refreshed and thought we'd catch the metro into town, and go for a walk. Once we hopped off the metro we walked around the White House, after a thousand photo's we headed over to the Washington Monument. A huge Stone structure it is both the world's tallest stone structure and the world's tallest obelisk. The Monument is also the Tallest Structure in Washington DC, a pretty cool sight to see. Leah and I were both really looking forward to checking out the Lincoln Memorial where you can look over the reflecting pool down to their World War II Memorial and the Washington Monument. To our horror, as we walk past the World War II memorial we find out that the reflecting pool has been torn up as they are under going maintenance on it =/ Both of us were mortified as this was what we were looking forward too most today and felt robbed. From our perspective in real life and many movies there have been many an important speech read out here, including Martin Luther King Jr. and Forest Gump. Trying to take in the view it was really disappointing from the stand point of these speeches as instead of being able to look over the reflection pool and take it all in, it was all just a pile of dirt and bulldozers. =/
Feeling a little depressed and tired from our massive walk we decided we should probably head back to our hotel and relax a little before we head out to dinner. We had planned to meet up with Monica, a friend of mine I meet in England in 2006, but unfortunately Leah felt unwell so we decided to call it a night, and made other plans to meet up with Monica.
After waking in the morning, Leah was feeling better so we left for the local Smithsonian Museums. First up was the Natural History Museum, Leah's favourite, it included many Dinosaurs, animals and even a Diamond & rock collection. It was amazing too see all that the museum had to offer, the collections were large and in great detail. We'll upload some photo's for you so you can see the best of it. =D After the walking around the Natural History Museum all morning it was time for the worst lunch we've ever had. Not only was it pricey as it was bought from within the museum but the taste was not up to standard. So take note readers, next time your here, don't eat lunch at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum eatery. =p
Next we were off to the Air & Space Museum, this large building in the middle of Washington DC includes are large range of real planes, space shuttles and fighter jets. It's an amazing experience to walk in to the museum and see the landing module that Neil Armstrong landed on earth in after his voyage to the moon. It's the real deal the actual pod that he landed in. You can see all the heat damage, marks and scratches that the pod endured while it landed back on earth. It's just amazing to see and know that these machines are the real deal, no replica's. While there we also saw The Wright brothers Exhibit, the 'How Things Fly' exhibit, Universe and Planetary systems exhibit, Pan Am Flight Deck on a 747, Flight attendant uniforms and what type of person you had to be to become a stewardess. There was just sssooo much to see in these museum's and by the end of the day Leah and I were totally stuffed. We caught the metro back to our station checked out the Wholefood store and then headed home. Leah and I reackon in the last 2 days we would have walked at least 20miles. The Museums and the exhibits are really far apart and it was taking a toll on our feet and legs. So when we got back to hotel we crashed and burned for the night after some drinks and home cooked dinner.
The next day when we got up Leah and I split up for the day to see do a bit of our own sight seeing as she wasnt really that keen to spend more tme looking at planes. So I decided to head out to the Dulles Airport to see the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum out there... Yes they have 2 of these Museums. =D The Dulles Airport version has some really kicka$$ planes! Highlights include the SR-71 Blackbird, F-35B Fighter Jet, F-15 Tomcat Fighter Jet, Air Frances Concorde and last but not least a B-52 Bomber none other than Enola Gay herself (Enola Gay was the plane that dropped the first ever Nuclear Bomb on Hiroshima, one of the 2 nuclear bombs that ended WWII) and that's just the air part of museum. The centerpiece of the space hangar is the Space Shuttle Enterprise and Other space artifacts include the Gemini VII space capsule; the Mobile Quarantine Unit used upon the return of the Apollo 11 crew; and a Redstone rocket. All these are exhibited on display for all to see and almost touch. I spent most of the day just walking around drooling at all the Jets, planes and space craft. It was truly Awesome!
Leah decided that she would spend her time down the shops, Pentagon City is the shopping mall, you guessed it right next to the Pentagon. After looking around at what the shops had to offer and not buying anything we both met back at the hotel about 2pmish to wait for a message from Monica so we could meet up, in arvo but seeing she had a hens night the night before she wasn't feeling any better than what Leah was the night before so we decided that Monday our last night would be the night we meet up for dinner. So Leah and I decided we'd head out to Union Station, which is the largest train station now also turned shopping mall in Washington DC. When it was built it was the largest building in the USA. An impressive stone building with Columbus square out the front, we ended up eating dinner at **Jonnies' Diner** which is a chain of hamburger diners that harks back to the 1950's style. The burger, chilly 'n' cheese fries and shake was one of the best combo's we've had while here in the US. After eating something we headed out to Capitol Hill/House. On our way to the US National Capitol complex, Leah I walked past a few little Squirrels, so we found an acorn on the ground and Leah successfully as able to get one of them to eat it out of her hand. The Capitol Complex is rather large and after walking around it and down the to Capitol reflecting pool (no where near as big or cool as 'The Reflecting Pool') We chilled for a bit taking some photo's of the place and decided we'd call it a day. So we headed down the National Mall (where all the Smithsonian Museums are in between Capitol Hill and the Washington Monument) to Smithsonian Station and made our way home. Did I mention the amount of walking that Leah and I were doing?!? We'd had some massive days out and about so it was easy for us to fall asleep.
We woke still feeling a little sore so we thought it was time we tried on of the other options of sight seeing in the US and decided it was time to test out the Double Decker bus tours. After a quick metro trip we arrived at Pentagon City to have a quick look around before heading out on the bus route. The way the system works is that there's 3 different routes that the buses take around Washington DC and you purchase a ticket that lasts for 24 hours, during that time you have unlimited free use of their buses. So out of the shopping mall we drive past The Pentagon, The Jefferson Memorial, Lincoln Memorial and then out to Union Station again before heading to downtown Washington DC. We thought it'd be cool to check out one of the Man Vs Food joints for some lunch so we after having a quick look at the map saw that one should be just up the road on 12 street. Little did we know that there's a 12 street NW, 12 Street NE, 12 Street....... so after having a confused look around and not being able to find the joint and being a little hungry we thought we'd hop back on the bus and head out to Georgetown and try and find somewhere there to eat. After hopping off the bus we went for a quick walk and found a cool pub called 'Thunder'. After a sweet Burger and trying some of beers we thought we catch the bus back to our place where we could freshen up and then head out again for dinner with Monica. Only to find that I'd miss placed the tickets!?! After much searching around and Leah becoming annoyed, we were lucky we weren't too far away from our hotel so we began our walk back home. So we headed out for a tapas dinner with Monica and Gonzalo at a place called Costa Verde. Finally we were both able to find some time too catch up, dinner was a heap of fun and tasted delicious! After our amazing dinner we headed back to our hotel and made our preparations for the next morning as we had a plane to catch.
The next morning as we rocked up to the Ronald Regan Airport but little did we know our morning was about to get really, really frustrating!!! First up, we had checked in online the night before and paid the $50 baggage fee on credit card. We had even received the confirmation email to say that we had paid it. Yet when we showed up to the check-in desk the lady behind the counter told us that we hadn't paid it... looking rather baffled and a little unamused (as she rudely straight away said 'oh where's your card and I'll charge it'), Leah and I both said well hang on we'll get the email up and show you that we have paid for it. Then the internet on Leah's phone decided that it would take at least 5 - 10mins to load the bloomin' page. We eventually got the page up and showed the airline employee that we had already paid, she looked at us as with disbelief, as if we had been lying to her the whole time. After her trying to sort it out with one of her superior's and failing, we decided it'd be quicker if we just paid it again and then later if we find out on our credit card statement both payments then we have to seek a refund. Not the best option but we had already wasted 25mins of our time and our flight was boarding soon. All while this was happening some random woman was sitting in front of us on the bag weighing machine, the airline employee even asked her to move for us and she just sat there then finally moved we both had no idea what she was up too, other than chewing up more of our time. By this time both Leah and I were a little frustrated as we had wasted so much time, especially when Leah isn't the best flyer around, she didn't need the extra stress. So we moved on to the security checking customs station.
Due to us being in Washington DC, here they have the new 'high tech' nude scanners that you need to walk into and raise your hands while they do a scan. While we were waiting in line we watch fairly much everyone in front of us just walk through the normal metal detector gate and then as soon as Leah stood forward they said "we got it working again, could you please stand in the machine." Leah being annoyed with this stood in the machine and waved her arms up in the air instead of just putting them up and holding them still. So when the scan went through it was blurry so the machine made a noise as the scan wasn't complete. They abruptly told Leah to stand aside while and that they'll have to take her into a room. Leah at this point was freaking out as she wasn't exactly sure what she was being pulled up for as they didn't explain it and was annoyed that they wouldn't let her do another scan even though the machine wasn't working before she was let through it. I was still standing on the other side of the machine and wasn't allowed through so I was unable to comfort her either. They finally got the machine back up and put me through it this time without it alarming, (I kept my arms still.) I then went to Leah's side for some comfort but they told me I couldn't stand near her, I suppose in case she gave me whatever it was that supposedly set the machine off. Leah was still freaking out and they still hadn't told her what they were going to do. As they were about take her into the room, some Chinese guy before her had also set the machine off and one of his companions was trying to go into the room, as the man was his boss and he didn't understand English, but the security people were really rude and neither he or his boss knew what was happening. We still didn't know what was going to happen. Some female security guards came by and told Leah she needs to go into the room with them. Leah was then told that because the machine alarm went off that she would have to be patted down. Once pat down they didn't find anything so we were finally good to go. Lucky, as just as we were walking down the gate our names came over the PA that we needed to board the flight. It ended up that our flight wasn't a full one so every else had already boarded early and they were just waiting for us. Once we had hopped on board the hosty told us we could sit anywhere on plane as we were the last people to board. This settled Leah a little as we were able to sit up the front where she likes, but little did she know this flight was going to one bumpy ride! For almost the whole flight the seat belt sign was left on as the there was a big patch of turbulence right between DC and Orlando. It wasn't drop out of the sky turbulence it was just enough to make it a bumpy ride, just what Leah doesn't like and definitely didn't need at that point of time.....
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Andrea (Annie's friend) We loved DC, last year when we went the pool was drained too, so disappointing. Managed to photoshop some water into our photos though hahaha