Saturday 1st March

Woke up early Saturday morning very excited by 2 things one was that we were off to the US of A to see cookie and the other is that we got to have a bit of a lie in as its 2 hours before the flight that you have to check in. After a bit of breakie and a hooper bus trip to the airport we arrived at terminal 4 and checked in. We had a look around the airport and then headed for the gate and our lovely big british airways plane. Was Quite posh onboard and we had plenty to drink and eat, watched some movies and had a bit of a 2 hour sleep. So after the 8 1/2 flight we landed in Washington DC and after recieving our bags (thankfully BA didn't loose them) we headed out to the arrivals lounge. Cookie was waiting there with his lovely lady Lisa and after some introductions we headed off to the car. After a brief drive, putting some GAS in the car and cookie getting lost we arrived at 2254 Cathedral ave, our base in DC for the next 10 days.

Lisa was busy getting ready so we used the time to sit and relax and soak up the DC atmosphere, cookies house being only a 5 min metro (tube like service) from the whitehouse. After cookie returned from dropping Lisa at union station we spent a few hours catching up and chatting. some time later we headed out for some food at one of DC's many restaurants, now there are many of them and it seems there are more restaurants and coffee shops than actual shops. We went to a local haunt of cookies called Spices a vietnamese restaurant which was very nice.

Sunday 2nd March

First thing we woke early like 7.30am to head of to Fado's to watch the Liverpool Match. Cookie assured me that the coffee was really good, now wolfie doesn't normally drink coffee but this is different we away travelling and its all about trying new things. So by the end of the match liverpool had won 3-1, we had some breakfast and wolfie had 3 coffee's (now am hooked). We headed back on the metro after the game and went to the farmers market at Dupont cirlce, got some nice american food to make for tea that night, and some fruit for the week.

Now i know again it sounds boring but after 3 weeks of craziness of getting ready and all the parties we headed back to cathedral avenue and just relaxed for the afternoon, spent some more time speaking to cookie and meeting all his house mates, vassue, jeff, delphine, and sarah. After having the huge pork chops we got from the market for tea we headed for bed.

Monday 3rd March

Starting to get over the we got up early this morning and headed of the washington Zoo, it was much off a walk from cookies house, its actually in the creek that runs next to it and sometimes you can hear some of the animals and birds in the morning. The Zoo was great and, and it was free how cool is that we watched the Elephants get a bath, saw the biggest hippo ever (was huge) and also the american animals mexican wolves, beavers and golden eagles. Now the Washington Zoo is famed for its pandas which were unfortunatly asleep when we passed but we said we would go back it being so close and all. Wolfie's highlight at the zoo was the orangutans exercise area which was 5/6 big platform around 50-75ft up joined by ropes and stretching about 1km or so, was well cool till one of them had a poo off it ha ha ha ha.

After some lunch of the zoo we walked down passed the 7-11 and the newspaper boxes to the woodley park metro stop. Next stop was the national mall, not off the shopping kind in washington thats were all the monuments, whitehouse and memorial are! first place we stopped as at whitehouse (the southside, better view from north seen that the next day), after some pics there we headed of to the Washington monument the tall pillar, if you look closely on the pics you can see the marble change color we it run out and theyh had to change when they making it. Next up was the WW2 monument which was amazing it told the story of the war simply and respectfully. Along the roadside entry black pewter type slabs told stories of war it raised pictues / sculpture from enlistment , training, d-day, war and victory in europe, then on the other side of the entrance it shows the war in the pacific. There ar pillars for each individual state with a reef on, and then 2 main pillars with the word's pacific and atlantic, at the base of these were quotes and the major battlefronts and turning points of the war.

Moving along the mall our next port of call was the Korean war memorial, which depicts in statues a troop of full size soldiers in battle formation. Adjecent to the soldiers is a black wall will pictures of men and women form the war who were missing or persumed killed, was very haunting seeing all these faces looking back at you. On a more somber note we had another coffee and headed for the well known lincon memorial, climbing the 41 steps you enter a huge expanse with Ab sat on the chair infront of you looking out over washington. We took time to read the inscriptions and speeches on the walls 'including the famous 4 scores speech', took some pictures overlooking the reflecting pool. Heading for the final memorial of the day 'the vietnam war memorial' we read various information which is dotted about near all the major tourist areas and had a peak of the wall. its about a good 100 ft long and rises out of the grass getting upto around about 8ft tall in places and in has the names in order of the day that died.

Afterwards we made our way to a suburb called Tenleytown (the names get better than that) to meet cookie to purchase some supplies. The american supermarket put asda to shame, all the fresh fruit and salad, the convience counters had people actually making the food instore, sushi chefs made it there and then, there was a stone oven for the pizzas and even cakes and chocolate were made instore. So we headed back for our tea os sushi and salad and went off to the cinema to watch semi-pro (the new will ferrel film) and then headed off to bed