Washington DC, Day 2 and 3

Corry eats his first twinky - what an experience!

Our time in the District of Columbia comes to an end.  It's been a wonderful few days.  Our hosts have been wonderful and we've seen a lot of the city.

Day Two of DC we hit the Smithsonian - who knew there were so many?  We managed to get in four (The Castle, Air and Space, Natural History and American History).  We could have spent a couple of days here - if you come through Washington, ensure you give yourself PLENTY of time to go through the museums - we ended up racing through quite a few that I would have liked to have spent more time on.

Highlights included (in no particular order):

• Kermit the Frog
• The Ruby Slippers from the Wizard of Oz
• Dinosaurs at the Natural History
• The Hope Diamond and the Precious stones collection
• The Civil War exhibition 
• Eating my first ever twinky in the Sculpture Garden

All in all, a very educational day

Hi ho!

Mr Nick and Mr Corry go to Washington

Day Three started off by getting completely confused by the Public Transport System - if you intend to use the Metro, which I do recommend, there are lots of convenient stops and it's relatively easy to use once you get the knack, do your research first - where to get tickets etc.  Then we were off to the Zoo.

It was a stinking hot day, and there were misting machines at the Zoo which sprayed you with a fine mist of cool water, which definitely helped.  Definitely the highlights were the Pandas.  Real live giant pandas!  Not just people in costumes dancing in front of the Chinese Embassy (You know who you are).  

The advantage of DC is that almost everything is free - all the Smithsonian Institute centres (including the Zoo) are free of charge, it's free to stand and take photos of the monuments, so it's a great place to be a poor traveler.

That afternoon we hit the Spy Museum (very well put together, but not my cup of tea, it turns out), then went to the White House and The Capitol to take lots of photos.  You get a true sense of grandeur outside these buildings - just the sheer size and stature of these buildings is so impressive.

You get so much of a sense of what it is to be part of America in this part of the country - there's so much for them to be proud of, so much to build a sense of national identity around.  New Zealand is wonderful and it has a rich and interesting history, but it just can't compare to the States in so many ways.  For a start, they actually finished their parliament building!

Anyways, so how does DC compare?  Well, you get the distinct impression that this is the seat of government everywhere you look - there's not the colour and vibrancy of San Francisco on the surface.  But the stoicism actually adds something - the brick work throughout both the city and its suburbs is totally beautiful.  The sheer grandeur of the buildings is overwhelming and stunning.

It also creates a real sense of history - you feel these structures have been here since the city was founded - which many were.  Coming from a city that has a bad habit of knocking down structures due to earthquake risk every few years, the sense of history is great.

The people - well, this is a much more subdued city than SF.  Everyone keeps to themselves a lot more, not as smily and friendly as prior ports of call.  That's not to say they're not friendly, it's just not as noticeable straight away.

So this morning we have gone to brunch, and spending a couple of hours downtime updating blogs and Facebook, checking mail and bank balances.  This afternoon we're off to Baltimore where we have our first baseball game - I'm going to try and order a hot dog and beer!