20.06.09

20.06.2009

Washington DC

The trip do Washington DC started at 8:00 a.m. in Manhattan. Therefore, I had to stand up early to make sure that I was there on time. The subway was full of people, the sidewalks, which is very unusual, were almost empty. Just the Dunkin' Donuts and the Starbucks were busy, people bought iced coffee, which seems to be more ice than milk and more milk than coffee.
THe weather seemed to be acceptable in New York, although it was supposed to be raining all day. Half of our group was a travel group from EF consisting of many young (13-17) Vietnamese people. I sat next do (I can't spell his name), a boy from Kazakhstan in my age. There was no one from Germany, just two women from Switzerland. The route was through many states: New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. Washington itself is in no state, it's just a state district. It was raining the most of the five-hour bus journey. Our guide was very nice. She had been doing these trips for 14 years. She told us about all interesting places we could see from the highway, e.g. a mormon temple, which looked really futuristic.
When we were in Washington DC, we stopped at many places, but we had not much time wherever we stopped. Sometimes we had just 20 minutes to take some pictures. I would have liked to stay longer, but the schedule was too full. We have been at the White House, many agencies and houses of the government, we saw the place where the Obama children went to school, the house where the vice president Joe Biden lives, Smithsonian Craft Museum (Renwick Gallery), the Vietnam, Korean, Lincoln and Jefferson memorials, the Reflecting Pool, the Washington Monument and the JFK Center for Performing Arts (an opera house, a theater and a concert hall), where a jazz concert took place in the lobby. 
After that we went to our hotel. It was the Hyatt in Arlington, Virginia. From there, we could walk in 15 minutes to Washington DC, Georgetown, a very nice area with many small shops, bars, restaurants and more. Especially at night it was a very cool place full of people and expensive cars. Our guide told us that Washington DC would be very empty in spite of weekdays, because all people working in Washington DC leave the city during the weekend. But even today it was very populated in my opinion. At 10 p.m. I was back in the hotel, where we shared a room and two beds with four people (Italian, Spanish, Peru (I think) and I) Tomorrow we have some program until noon, and after that free time until 4:30 when we will go back.