WOW this place is nothing but amazingly beautiful. The architecture is stunning but it completely reminds me of Canberra. Most buildings are mono toned but the city itself is gorgeous as there are lots of parks and trees throughout the place. On my first afternoon there I checked into this Duo Housing hostel in downtown DC. It was small but nice, only 60 beds in the hostel and so it made it easy to meet people however there were sooo many doors in and out of each room it made it hard to remember which was your dorm was, yes I got lost a couple times!
After checking in, I headed to a small Spanish bar/restaurant to get a feed as I hadn’t eaten at all and desperately needed to get food before it got dark as I didn’t really know the city yet. This little family run place was cute, busy, cheap and very small but the food was amazing! There were a lot of Mexicans in the joint, drinking tequila and beer while they were watching a tv show which looked like the bold and the beautiful just in Spanish. I couldn’t help but watch it from the bar stool I was at. Hardly understanding what the hell they were on about, I kinda got the drift as there were a few words that I understood and got the gist from their gestures. There was a big touch screen juke box that a few guys at the bar beside me were feeding money into and putting on some old Spanish music. They were priddy hammered but were singing along at the bar and laughing. I couldn’t help but strike up a conversation with them as they were amazed that I was drinking beer with my meal and had a few more while I was there alone. With broken English and my low ability to understand Spanish we managed to keep the conversation going for a few more beers. I thought at this time to put a song on…. As I didn’t read Spanish neither, I couldn’t really pick a song without knowing or not knowing what the hell it was. I didn’t want to come off as a moron and put on some classical music or whatever, so I opted for a new English song, Pharrell Williams – Happy. I was boppin around in my chair and I swear I felt all the Mexicans eyes in that bar just stare me out something fierce and probably think to themselves, look at this gringo come into our bar and put on this shit music. LOL I just really didn’t care cause I thought it was funny and I really really like that song. As the bar was closing early I made a move back to the hostel without any dramas but it was getting really cold again.
Day 2 in DC turned out to be a nice day and thought it would be a great idea to grab a map and go for a walk and see the sights despite that I had booked in for a walking photography tour for the following evening. I found my way to the white house which to my bloody surprise, it was not what I was expecting. I was expecting the US Capitol building and not this big white boring building surrounded by black 12 food fence, police and security. I found myself taking pictures of a lot of other building surrounding the white house due to their random architecture designs and images embedded within the building window frames. Slowly making my way around the white house I found the Washington Monument in the near distance. Instead of walking right up to it, I walked around the massive lake to the Lincoln Memorial first up to get a picture of the monument via the reflective pool. After a good 30 min walking around this lake I made it to the reflective pool to find it completely empty!!!! I was soooo gutted and but could only but laugh as I purposely came to Washington DC to get this image. Cringing and to my dissatisfaction I moved onto the Lincoln Memorial and found it to be much larger than what I was expecting. I tried to dodge the crowd as there were a lot of school kids and older people around. Making my way around the EMPTY reflective pool and back around to the base of the Washington monument…. Well as far as I could get to it as it was under construction to get a face lift. The Holocaust Memorial was soooo big it was breath taking. I was standing by a group of park rangers as 2 massive green helicopters flew overhead. I thought to myself im sure that they were Marine helicopters, then a park ranger came up to me and she was telling me that in the far distance on top of a building if you see 2 black figures it means that the President is either leaving or returning in one of these helicopters. I thought that was priddy cool of her to say that to me even though I didn’t approach them for info. Im glad that she did cause I walked around a little more on the other side of the monument and waited for the helicopters to leave again and I managed to get a couple images of them flying over the top of me. I now can say that I had the President on top of me twice! LOL
The day was turning out to be a cracker of a day and the sun was warming up very quickly. I slowly made my way over to the US Capitol and to my amazement there was a reflective pool on the outside of this beautiful building. I yet to have a look at the pictures closely but im hoping that I managed to capture this with the building in clear sight. I didn’t go up to the building as the view was magnificent from where I was. There were random turquoise coloured statues on either side of this building which were stunning to look at. I think I sat there for a good 30 min just taking in the view and people watching as others came and went, taking random selfies in front of this gorgeous building. As the day was getting on I realised I had about a 3 km walk back to the hostel and needed to make a move before it got dark. On the way home I past a lot of museums, the national history museum, a few art museums etc… it really surprised me as to how many museums DC actually had and most of them were busy throughout the whole day. When I got back to the hostel I found out that my mate Sebastian that I met in San Francisco was in DC for his last day tomorrow so we arranged to meet up at the National History Museum for the day.
Well it was easier said than done to meet him as this building was massive and after 10 min past the time we were meant to meet I had realised that there was more than one entrance to this place. After another 10 min walk I managed to find him at the other side of the building which worked out well cause I could sneak up behind him and surprise him. It was soooo good to see him again! We spoke for a while and then decided to go into the museum, while still talking about stuff we seen the original flag for the USA which only had 15 stars on it. Learning a little about the history of this country we were too busy catching up and swapping stories of our trips that we decided to leave the place and move onto the park outside as there were people playing extreme Frisbee! Oddly enough Sebastian knew a lot about the game as he use to play it in college. The sun was good to us and it was nice just to sit in the park and chat and watch the game unfold. Eventually (as per usual) we left to find a bar for a couple beers, which conveniently turned into a bar crawl as we really didn’t enjoy the Capitol Brewery bar. We moved onto an Irish bar just outside of China town and sat there for many hours chatting about everything and watching the football. Eventually it was time to go as we had a lot to drink and a few shots of fireball and wet pussy’s in us and I didn’t want to leave it too late to walk back to the hostel. It was totally amazing to see him again as we really hit it off when we first met in San Fran and we both really enjoyed each others company. Yet again another sad moment having to say see ya to him but I know we will see each other again when the time comes for me to travel to Germany to see him! Going back to the hostel was an interesting adventure as I was struggling to see as the wind picked up and after a few drinks most lights became blury. Luckily I had time this morning to pack my bag so I wouldn’t have to do it tomorrow when I need to move onto Baltimore! Yeooww I cant wait to see Hashie and the rest of the Terry Family!
