Well, lucky for us, Ultimate Belgian Tasting didn’t cause us any hangovers, so we left at 10AM sharp for Washington DC. The weather was nice, there wasn’t a lot of traffic, and with excellent drivers like Elke and myself, we arrived smoothly in Washington DC. On the way, we saw the Ben Franklin Bridge, a hobo playing a racing game (probably only in his mind, if you look at his equipment..) and lots and lots of big American trucks.
Arriving in our room was also a very pleasant surprise, given the rather low price we paid for it. But, we didn’t loiter and headed straight to the center of the town. We had a nice little photo shoot in front of and around the White House, enjoyed the very nice weather, took a little nap at the Washington Memorial, and walked our feet off passed the WWII memorial, the Reflecting Pool, the Lincoln Memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Georgetown,… (No wonder that I’m still not gaining any weight, even after all those hamburgers..)
Saturday was Cherry Blossom Parade day. All big stars were present: Miss America 2008, Garfield, Bob the Builder and a lot of other famous Americans I don’t know. Afterwards, we went to the Sakura Matsuri festival. This is supposed to be the biggest Japanese street fair in the whole of America. What can you expect at such a street fair? a lot of fat people dressed up in Final Fantasy characters and a lot of hamburgers and sushi.. We decided that we’d seen enough, and we continued our tour to the the FBI building and National Aquarium. We saw a lot of little and big fishes, some uglier than others. We also visited the White House visitors’ center. Unfortunately, you can’t visit the White House, unless you request it six months in advance. We also visited the Smithsonian, the Air and Space museum, took a stroll along the National Mall, straight to the United States Capitol. after seeing some more impressive buildings (after a while, they all start to look the same).
We got sick of all the walking, so we decided to do the long dintances by Metro. We started at the Washington Zoo, where we saw the lazy Panda’s, the elephants, the ape that fell in love with Elke, the fat people and a lot of weird looking animals I’ve never seen in my life. On the way back to the Metro, we did a ‘little’ detour to the Washington Cathedral. Too bad we couldn’t enter. If we knew that, we wouldn’t have gone all the way up there… Next stop was the Washington Station (not to be compared with Gent Sint Pieters! the hall where all the rail exits lead to, is equally big as the fast food hall in Washington).
The last thing we had to see was Arlington Cemetery. It’s probably the biggest cemetery in the US, as it has more than 290 000 graves, mostly war veterans and their family. On our way their, we were noticed by some Alabamians who said that we should really include Kentucky in our road trips, to come see the cows. Who wants to see cows if you can see Washington, The beaches of Florida or the Niagara Falls? Anyways, back to Arlington.. You can visit Kennedy’s grave, the grave of the unknown soldier, and a bunch of monuments. It’s verry impressive to see the changing of the guard. (reminded me of the time we went to see it at the Palace in London).. By that time, our feet hurted like hell, so we decided to go back to the hotel. Elke and I watched ‘America’s Next Top Model’ and ate a lot of M&M’s, while Laurens decided to go to the fitness.. We grabbed something to eat, and prepared for the long drive the next day..
