Sarah has decided that Alan has to write the blog again tonight. Her thoughts are in green.
We were up nice and early this morning to make good use of our trolley tour tickets which we transferred from yesterday. We caught the train into DC and after a few moments getting our bearings we made our way to one of the tour stops. I picked a closer trolley stop to the train so Alan wouldn't have to walk on his sore foot. I'm nice to him ... he wasn't as nice when I had a sore foot. There was a trolley there waiting so we jumped on. Our aim was to do a complete loop of the orange tour before deciding where we wanted to get off and have a look at certain sights. The loop took us about an hour I suppose and after returning to our starting point we then got off at the next stop which was the Capitol building.
Right behind the Capitol is the Library of Congress which we were interested in browsing through. We walked around there and up the front stairs but unfortunately it's closed on Sundays so we didn't end up getting in. A long walk for nothing, although we saw plenty of cute little squirrels along the way. So we returned to our trolley stop to wait for the next one to come along. It didn't take long as they run very often.
We drove past tons of places like the Jefferson Memorial, the Smithsonian, the Franklin Roosevelt Memorial, The White House, The FBI building, the National Archives, the Botanical Gardens along with countless museums, statues and government buildings.
The next place we got off was the Lincoln Memorial, which we had already seen yesterday, but it's also where you transfer onto the red tour trolley. It came along almost immediately and we got on and headed across the Arlington bridge. The only place the red tour goes is Arlington National Cemetery, which is the humungous cemetery where many American soldiers and their families are buried. Out the back of the bus we could just see the top of The Pentagon.
Once we arrived at the cemetery we had the option of either walking or paying $7 each for a guided bus tour. We were feeling cheap so we chose to walk. The place is really really big and not very flat. It's around 600 acres in size and contains about 300,000 graves. Lucky we had a map which showed us the way to find the resting place of John F. Kennedy and his family. Behind him, his wife and his sons grave is the eternal flame. There were heaps of people there taking photos but it's very quiet and respectful. Alan was asked to remove his hat by the security person. We thought about walking to the Unknown Soldier Tomb where there is the changing of the guard every half hour, but it was too far and uphill so we went back to the trolley stop.
Back over to the Lincoln Memorial to get back on the orange tour but before that bus came along we had enough time to check out the Korean war memorial. It included a tribute to Americas allies during that war, one of which was Australia.
We jumped back on the trolley and returned to a stop where we could transfer onto the green tour line. We had a 20 minute wait before the green bus left so we bought a thickshake each as it was now after 2pm and we'd had nothing all day. We didn't get off at any of the stops on the green tour as we weren't so interested in the places but it was still nice to see all the different areas and places along the way. It included a drive down Embassy Row which is where most countries embassies are located, the National Cathedral which I believe is the world's 7 largest, the Watergate Hotel and passing through the very old Georgetown. Along the way the driver pointed out peoples houses such as Hillary Clinton, Dick Cheney, John Kerry, Steven Decatur and plenty of others I can't remember right now.
By the time we returned to the White House trolley stop we were getting tired as it had been a really long day so we got out and took some photos of the back of the White House. We then walked to the nearest Metro station which for some reason was closed so we had to walk a few more blocks to the next one.
After getting back to our hotel we were ready for dinner so we went out to a little Thai restaurant just up the road where we had a great meal. I noticed the restaurant yesterday and suggested we might try it. I also did a genius job of picking tonight's menu. The dishes were delicious. Now it's time to pack once again as we head north tomorrow morning.
Trivia for the day: Washington DC is the greenest city in the USA. If a tree is ever cut down or dies, it is replaced by 2 others. There are also a lot of cherry blossom trees. After visiting Japan First Lady Helen Taft wanted to landscape a lot of Washington with cherry blossoms but there was no money. President Taft and his wife invited the Japanese ambassador to the White House and he offered a gift and asked what they would like and First Lady Helen Taft suggested the trees. He asked how many they would like and she said 3,020. The first two were planted by the first lady and the Japanese ambassador's wife in 1912.
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