Washington DC

Washington was the next destination on our Cosmos tour. Our guide, Margaret is about 60 and she has a weird sense of humour. She is forever talking on the microphone when most people are trying to have a nap. Athough Louise finds the monologue on American History quite soothing and is fast asleep in no time. We think she is the guide as she was actually alive when most of the events took place. No more broken hips yet so she's doing OK. Above is a picture of us outside the World War II Memorial.

We spent a day at the Mall (this must be the only 'Mall' in the USA that has no shops -it’s the name of an area that contains all the Museums and Monuments). The Museum of Natural History was a favourite. Saw a gem collection which included the Hope Diamond (which Warren tried to tell me was the one thrown overboard in the Titanic) and some humungous gem necklaces which would have given their wearer a kink in the neck for sure. Also had a celebrity jewel collection which included the diamond earrings worn by Maire Antoinette.

As well as learning all about gems we also learnt that to be walking around a government building with a giant telephoto lens is to evoke suspicion, no matter how innocent you think you might look. Admittedly, I was there for quite a while waiting for all the tourists to get out of the way. There were 3 armed guards at the front of the Capitol with hand guns and shot guns walking up and down the stairs. We were about to leave and one of the guards came up to us for a ‘friendly’ chat. He asked where we were from and how long we were in DC. When he asked me why I was talking photos of the tourists leaving the building and then wanted to see my photos it became apparent that he wasn’t just being friendly. It probably didn’t look too good that I had taken quite a few pictures of the guards with their guns! I thought it was pretty amusing that I could have been viewed as a security threat but Warren is looking a bit browner and reckons he could pass for an Arab.

Due to some district regulations we had to have a local tour guide in DC. Being a tour guide must be a retirement vocation over here as this guide could have been our regular tour guide’s mother! But apart from talking so quietly that you had to strain to hear her, she did pretty well, waving her umbrella in the air for us to follow her and making sure we took our one photo of Capitol Building before getting back on the bus.

Oh and I almost forgot our visit to the Whitehouse. That's me there inside just about to go and say Hi to George. Yeah Right! Now that I think about it, it's kind of stupid but I actually thought you might be able to go up to the building or at least stroll across the grounds.. but no it's completely fenced off from about 300m in front and there is a guy with a sniper standing on top.

Americans know how to build a monument and that is evident in many places in DC. These things are HUGE and impressive. Our visits included Arlington (where all the people who serve in the military or government are buried) and memorials for the Korean War, Vietnam War and World War II. The Vietnamese memorial was pretty cool they had statues of soldiers in various poses and actual faces of people from the war etched into a wall. That's part of the Vietnam War memorial in the photo above.

My entire knowledge of US monuments exists from TV – the Lincoln monument from the episode of the Simpsons when Lisa goes to DC for the Spelling Bee and the Washington Monument from when Forrest Gump speaks at the Vietnam War protest and Jenny swims across the water to see him…Lincoln was HUGE…. A cartoon doesn’t capture the full scale of it. You can just see Lincoln sitting in his monument in the photo to the left.

After visiting the Vietnam monuments, a lady from NZ on the tour asked if everyone could gather together. We thought we were going to get a tour photo and wished it had been. Instead she asked everyone to stand in a circle, hold hands and sing ‘Now is the Hour’. Just picture 42 old people holding hands and swinging their arms while singing the worst rendition of ‘Now is the Hour’ you’ve ever heard while crowds of tourists stare at us in bewilderment. I burst out laughing and Warren is standing beside me saying ‘shut-up Louise this isn’t meant to be funny’. And to top it all off, at the end of it she announces ‘that was a gift from all the NZers!’ A few of the younger tour members looked at us questionably so I had to let them know that we had nothing to do with that lovely ‘gift’. The Aussies gave us their own gift on the bus with ‘Waltzing Matlida’.

On our final night in DC we went out for dinner with Natalie and Nathan - a couple from Melbourne who we became friends with on our tour. Here we are after polishing off some good old American pizza and wings with range sauce.

(OK well I tried to put the photo up but it appears Blogspot has a few issues and won't let me do it)