Quick Washington D.C hello

With my time in the United States coming to a close soon, and with seeing the Smithsonian Museums in Washington D.C high on my 'must see' list, I scheduled enough time away from work to make it happen! Made easier by the fact that it was only a 4 hour bus ride away (which believe me, is definitely reasonable!), so that is where I was the last couple of days.

The entire time in D.C was made so much better by the simple fact that two friends I made whilst working at the Bed and Breakfast in California, all the way back in June, happened to be traveling around there at the same time! Allie and Clint were such awesome company, and it was so nice to be able to explore a new city with friends for a change instead of being on my own like most other times. Plus, they had a van!

Our first day was spent walking around the National Monument and the Lincoln Memorial... which I guess is a pretty cheesy 'tourist' spot but whatever, it was actually pretty cool.

"Greetings Mr Lincoln. No no, don't get up. I'm just passing through"

Clint, Allie and I

So that was a nice, relaxing day. The next day was the highly anticipated Smithsonian Museums! There is in fact like 17 of them, so we opted to go to the ones we were most interested in, which for me was of course the Air and Space Museum! And as luck would have it (which seems to happen on this entire trip really), just as we purchased our tickets, a tour was about to start!

It was a really great tour, with 2 hours of aeronautical history thrust upon us, from the Wright brothers' first flight in 1903, to Amelia Earhart's feats of accomplishments, to of course the birth of the Space Age... it was awesome, and I was utterly enthralled with every word.

The Air and Space Smithsonian Museum

The Wright brothers original plane

A replica (or possibly even the real thing) of Amelia Earhart's plane where she famously tried to circumvent the globe but disappeared somewhere over the Pacific Islands, never to be heard from again.

A replica of the space module that detached and landed on the moon on our first moon landing in 1969

So... that was an awesome day and experience to say the least! Sadly however time was against us and it had to be kept down to a relatively short visit (by my standards at least) before all three of us had to head back up to New York before it got too late. As mentioned, Allie and Client had a van, so that saved me from the huge boredom of a bus ride alone, instead allowing for great conversations and plenty of rest stops on the drive home!

I'll revel a secret here... by this time next week I will be flying back home to Australia. My days in New York City are less than the fingers on one hand, before I'll be making the journey back to the West coast, before catching the final flight of them all.

Wish me luck!

A street sign I saw in New York City when I was walking home after being dropped off by Clint and Allie... how cool!