Still, it was a beautiful warm sunny day and the walk from the Washington Memorial to the Jefferson Memorial was worthwhile, with the boating lake that sits out the front of it lined by the pretty cherry blossom trees everyone is going mad for. The Jefferson Memorial was not really that different from the Lincoln one we saw yesterday, but still impressive nonetheless.
The shit bus managed to get us this time (and still had out of synch commentary) and took us up to my favourite part of Washington DC: The Arlington Cemetery. Some 350,000 people who have fought or served the country are buried here and to witness all those gravestones for as far as the eye can see is a very strange feeling indeed. We saw John F. Kennedy and his cursed family’s gravestones as well as those of the Unknown Solider (another one) and then a communal site for the Unknown Soldiers (yup plural). At the latter of these, the changing of the guard took place as soon as we arrived – a deeply fitting and typically patriotic act that took almost 15 minutes of slow ceremony. Good though it was.
From Arlington we jumped on the Metro and decided on something to eat. I managed to order my dinner OK, but their continued misunderstanding of my accent led to Small Irish getting a sandwich and not what I asked for (how do you confuse salad for tuna sandwich?) We then got coffee from Dunkin Donuts who also struggled with my accent (?) and laughed when I asked for a white and black coffee (!!!???).
Refreshed, we headed for the National Archives where America’s most important documents are stored. It took almost an hour to get to see those documents, but they were well worth the wait. Enclosed in a special room were the original copies of the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights and the United States Constitution. Pretty impressive stuff, although I did panic when my camera flash shone on the Declaration of Independence (despite a million warnings about doing this to these documents!) I think we’re starting to suffer from American history overload, so it’ll be nice to get to Canada tomorrow.
With the night still warm, we decided to do a night time bus tour of the city. We had an hour to kill so tried for a beer in the bar only to be refused service as I didn’t look old enough!!! Hate it when that happens. Anyway, got the bus, saw the sights by moonlight and then jumped on The Metro to take us back to the hotel for a well-earned sleep.
Stormy weather is predicted for tomorrow, so could be in for a big pain in the arse getting to Toronto with a connection in Newark. Must go, as I am absolutely knackered.
