Washington D.C.

Good old Ab watching over his city

I arrived in New York at 5:50am - however in terms of my new adjusted time it was 2:50am for me (haven't felt the jet lag get coming back this way - I was KO going the other way). I jumped in a shuttle and headed to Dax place to shower, packed a small over night bag and hauled my ass onto a bus to DC. 

Megabus.com has super cheap bus fares and if you book far enough in advance you can get your fare for $1 which was super amazing... But with all things cheap you might pay the price in waiting a while for the bus to arrive or be told to "adjust your attitude" if you cannot show your bar coded ticket - which lead to me missing my original bus and having to get onto a later bus at a $25 surcharge.

DC is beautiful and very different to all other American cities I've been to. It's history is wonderful and the architecture was European in its feel and very very nicely put together. An interesting fact about DC is that it was created with the specific purpose of becoming the USA's capital city in 1790, and it definitely shows that this was a city that was very carefully thought out.

Lincoln Memorial from a distance

With only one night to spare I hit the ground running and literally got my running shoes on and walked the sites.

United State Capitol - which, like my life, was underconstruction

Thanks to Wikipedia, I learnt that Washington, D.C., hosts 176 foreign embassies as well as the headquarters of the World Bank (I walked past this), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) (I walked past this also), the Organization of American States (OAS), the Inter-American Development Bank, and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). The headquarters of many other institutions can be seen from the lush streets of the city, one of my favourite being the post office.

The post office



The White House - smaller than I thought it would be - but maybe that's because I confused it with the Capitol Building - THANKS HOLLYWOOD...



The Washington Monument



Jefferson Memorial - by far my favourite Monument

 The National Mall is a large, open park in downtown Washington between the Lincoln Memorial and the United States Capitol. Many wonderful museums line the outer boundaries of this park. The Smithsonian Institution operates 19 museums and the National Zoo, all free to the public and all easily accessible from the National Mall. As I was limited for time I only managed to walk through the Smithsonian Institute and Gardens (really beautiful and was nice to get grounded while walking through blossoming gardens on a fresh spring morning), the Freer Gallery (which housed amazing exhibitions of art from East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Islamic world, the ancient Near East, and ancient Egypt) and the National Museum of Natural History. But if I had the time I would have loved to get to the National Air and Space Museum, the National Museum of African Art and the National Museum of the American Indian.



Smithsonian Institution



National Museum of Natural History - saw the biggest whale EVER!!

 Yes I ran around this museum like a 5 year old child. It was awesome seeing all the dinosaurs and other ‘aurs from different ages. Who knew there were ages between the dinosaurs and us? Yes that is  very blond thing to say – but I saw the remains of VERY odd looking animals and walked out of the museum feeling much more intelligent than before.




Freer Gallery

I thought it was a sign that just outside of the Freer Gallery was a sculpture called the 'Twisted Form' (Traveller's Guardian Spirit). This stone sculpture made of Agi stone and Peruvian granite was a gift to the Hirshhorn Gallery by Nobutaka Shikanai in celebration of the museum and sculpture garden's 10th anniversery in 1984 (this also just happens to be my birth year and I am travelling). 

So with the amazing omen in hand - I explored more of DC with  bigger smile on my face.

Oh and as a backpacker going through DC... I highly recommend Hostelling International - Washington DC. It was close to everything, clean, cozy and has wifi.