Visiting the capital of the US

On September 2 we celebrated Labor Day in the US, so we used the longer weekend to visit Washington. I have to clarify, Washington DC (everybody asks this clarification here, since they have a state and a city with the same name :)). We spent two full days there, and got a really nice impression of the capital, it is definitely worth to spend at least a week if you want to visit a couple of museums (which, by the way, are all free). We were supposed to meet the Obamas, but unfortunately they had planned to travel to Europe at that time. If not, they'd had made time for us, I'm sure :)

Getting from Detroit to Washington by car is long, it took us around 12 hours, things that happen before a long weekend, we were not the only ones on the road. We got there around 11,30 pm, and then we had to look for parking. Not fun. But at last, we made it. The next day we started the visit of the downtown area, where we saw the White House (photo above), and the Mall, an open are in the center of the city where the main monuments are located. In the photo below you see the obelisk called Washington Monument, unfortunately, it was under construction at that time.

Not far away from there we got to the Smithsonian Museums, the largest museum complex in the world. Our first station was the Space and Air Museum. There you can find everything from the first planes used to impressive models of turbo-machines, as well as a lot of material related to aerospace, the universe... Really extensive, and yet not so to get boring.

Here is Andres before getting in the space rocket to the moon :)

After a quick lunch we walked around the Capitol. It is so awkward to finally see the building that so many times is shown on the news. It feels somehow as if you had already been here before.

The heat was unbearable, so we decided to go slowly towards the hotel. On the way to the subway station, which was on the other side from the capitol, we had to stop on every museum, only to cool down for a second. Good thing they are free :)

Later in the evening the went out to Georgetown, a nice area of the city full with shops and restaurants, beside the Potomac river. There we saw some interesting spots, like the oldest Old Stone House, the oldest unchanged building in Washington.

These stairs became famous with the movie "The Exorcist", nowadays  they're called the "Exorcist steps".

This is a photo of the main street in Georgetown, nice little houses that call for a calm walk after the busy and warm day.

The next day we walked back to the downtown area. We started saluting the president Lincoln, sitting in the Lincoln Memorial.

Despite of our visit, he remained seated...

Here I am standing in front of a big wall with the names of the fallen in Vietnam.

This is the Roosevelt Memorial, apparently he loved his dog very much, so it forms part of the memorial too.

As part of the Roosevelt memorial, these statues of people waiting in the bread line represents the Great Depression that preceded the World War II.

These are statues that form part of the Korean War Memorial.

Across the lake there is the Jefferson Memorial.

After so many memorials, we felt like not having the clear picture in our minds, so we visited the Museum of American History. It was very interesting, especially we liked the section of the Civil War.

After that, we went back to Dupont Circle, walked around a little bit, and then went back to the hotel. For the night, we repeated our choice of the previous night and went to Georgetown, where we enjoyed a very nice meal near the see.

In summary, Washington has many enjoyable walks, you can learn a lot from the many museums, and the restaurant diversity has a lot to offer. We will visit again soon :)

Lots of love,
Lita & Andres