The LONGEST Day!!

After a suitably long rest we woke at 10 am ready to take on Washington, our full day was going to be FULL. We started by heading in the wrong direction only for 1 block to our new local starbucks in order to indulge ourselves but this proved to be impossible as we couldn’t sit anywhere and they didn’t have bagels....OMG!

So we back tracked and continued along M street our destination Key Bridge to cross into the state of Virginia and the county of Arlington, so I am informed. Along the way we trusted that the rash of starbucxium would have spread westwards in the city! After 4 blocks we were starting to sweat not only form the 35 degree heat but also withdrawal symptoms from starbucks breakfast!!! Still no starbucks....would we have to resort to McDonalds? Thankfully the newly addicted Christoph looked to his right and spotted the Green umbrellas and odd mermaid sign STARBUCKS...can you believe it he chose starbucks over McDonalds....so proud am I!!!

After attempting to start writing day ones blog we gave up in favour of getting the day underway...thought we would do it in stages as we walked...we continued along our route and visited A and F...we have to, it is now tradition that we identify with every store possible! And with that we came to the Key Memorial (guy who created the star spangled banner anthem) and they also named a bridge after him which we duly crossed. Time for water!! Walking across a bridge is hard work! Thank you starbucks they give free tap water and Ice! We soon found ourselves crossing of the Highway which mongo had Identified as the marker for the Iwo Jima statue; our first glimpse was that of a flag, the stars and stripes and it was huge.

As the statue emerged through the trees we were surprised, firstly at the size of the statue, as this picture shows Chris is suddenly a midget;

Secondly we were surprised at the lack of people here.
The statue really does have a commanding view over the Capital City, with the Capitol in the very distance and Washington (spiky one) and Lincoln memorials.

We moved on to Arlington cemetery;

As we emerged over the hill that separates Iwo Jima and Arlington we, well mongo, were shocked at the sight, white war graves everywhere.

Chris having been to the French war graves only last year had more of an idea what this sight would be, whilst for Mongo it had been a good 14 years if not more since I had seen them.

We entered the Cemetery and were met by some of the most recent American causalities in Afghanistan, yet to be commended to burial, one had died less the 2 weeks ago; as we moved further in to the cemetery we saw a grave sight prepared for burial. The information we got at the visitor centre identified that if the flags are at half mast solders are being buried that day. As it turns out a good 3 or 4 were being buried, we heard one (the gun salute) and saw Navy and Army preparation for funeral parades, horse and carriage included.

We joined the crowd’s pilgrimiging to the Kennedy Memorial and Grave

A prominent position in the Cemetery for one of the nation’s favourite presidents. The grave marked by the eternal flame was extremely solemn buried with his wife Jacqueline and with memorials to his two children one unnamed daughter who lived less than 24hrs in the same year JFK died and a 2 month old son Patrick that the Kennedys lost 2 years before.

Ahead of his grave is part of his inaugural speech, engraved in granite in parts is illegible and only legible on an angle in other parts a shame really; To the left lie his two brothers Edward and ....

With that we moved on to the tomb of the unknown soldier, that has a constant guard of honour, it was extremely quiet as the solider marched up and down the same 15ft, wouldn’t fancy that job in this heat.

It seems sad though that so many visit the tomb of the Unknown soldier yet as we continued to wonder the cemetery we saw maybe 2 other visitors looking at the graves; not taking any recognition from those who were never identified but if you see and pay respects to one you should do the same for the other, named or not. Similarly Chris was upset to see that, unlike the European war graves, those higher ranking members of the military, her Generals and Admirals etc, had much grander, bolder grave sites than those lower ranking soldiers. Surely if death is the great equaliser then those who’ve died serving their country deserve the same recognition as leaders.

We went to the south east edge of the cemetery as it was here that we would be able to see the pentagon; as it was the best view was that we saw from the north of the cemetery, ah well.

We were now getting quite thirsty so we returned to the Visitor Centre thinking they would have water for sale or something.....no they didn’t! They had water fountains that produced warm water...not exactly refreshing! And so we headed back to D.C this time via the Arlington Memorial Bridge. As we crossed we witnessed sights that following 9/11 would scare anyone; the flight path of aeroplanes from Washington national airport was directly over the pentagon and up the Potomac....even I was terrified.

We arrived back into DC and headed to find a drink from somewhere....and we were charged through the teeth for it...$12 for 2 waters a tiny Pepsi and an Orange Juice! We headed to see the Lincoln memorial

Chris was really hungry and McDonalds was his meal of choice so having seen how polite the woman in the Lincoln memorial shop was with another customer, Mongo plucked up the courage to ask while paying for Patches...

“Could you tell me where the nearest MacDonald is please?” to which I got the sharp response “NO” and with that she busied herself behind the till. What, is it a F***ing secret love, by now both Chris and I were getting fed up with the attitude of some of the staff in public places, coffee shops, gift shops etc. The only decent person we have had help us was our waiter at Hard Rock last night. Our rage wasn’t helped by the heat we can see that now as we both at stages wanted to kill each other....the arguments solved by silence the usual! We had wanted to get to the Capitol aswell, which it was eventually agreed this wasn’t going to happen.

We thus ventured up to the Washington Memorial. A giant spike effectively....its significance we are not sure but it was freaking tall, it is 165 blocks high Mongo is as tall as 3! They ran out of money when building it to so, half is Marble the other half is granite! You can just about see the change in colour of the blocks on the photo.

From here we headed north, to find the McDonalds we had seen yesterday, we thought we would pass by the White House

See if the Obama’s wanted to join us....unfortunately Barack was signing some important bill or something!!!

We enjoyed Nuggets, Chips and Ice Cream and sat for 1 ½ hours....not such fast food!! Next to us were a mother and daughter who spent longer in the restaurant than us, they had a drink that was it and spent the whole time doing puzzles uttering probably 2 words to each other....wow!! Even with our lack of energy we could do more!!

With that we headed for the hotel the plan was for Mongo to write the blog in starbucks while Christoph returned to get the tripod for night pictures....yey!! We headed for the white house, it was beautifully lit up; On the North side of the White House

You can get much closer that on the south side which by the time we got to it had a further 10 meters blocked off which pushed us further back, but with his whopper Betsy (Chris’ super zoom lens) this distance was nothing!!!!

From here we went to the Washington Monument. Situated in the centre of the Mall we had awesome views of it obviously,

Lincoln memorial

and The Capitol building

From by this time it was 9.45pm....I know it was bad but Mongo really wanted to see the FDR (Roosevelt Memorial) the most recent presidential memorial completed in 1997. En route was Jefferson equally as impressive;

Despite the late hour there were still a number of tours going on, so people were around which gave a little more confidence to Christoph...I hope; I’m sure he will think it was worth it....but won’t admit that, to me anyway....apparently I tricked him!She bloody did trick me, the occasional comment about how she had really wanted to go to the FDR memorial but she understood that she’d pushed me too far today... take a few more pictures... ‘But the Jefferson monument is just along this main road and could we go and see that... no you’re right we should get back’...take a few more pictures... ‘Should we go then, to Jefferson?’ ‘ARRRRRGH Fine lets go, if we get raped you are so going first!’... silence while walking... ‘Thanks for taking me to the last two presidents man’‘It’s fine bu... HANG ON TWO!!!’ ‘Yeah well FDR is right next two Jefferson...’ (right next to = about ½ mile away) – Exaduration!!FDR memorial is made up of four water feature memorials,

Significant to each term in office he served, four in all despite dying in office during the first year of his 4th term (1945) It is still classed as one. Known as America’s war president, people in the UK will know him as part of the big three; Churchill, Stalin and FDR; provided they paid attention in history. He also is responsible for America’s entry into the Second World War when it began in 1941... hang on something’s wrong there! However more significantly he started the craze of First Dogs with his Westie, Fala, the first famous White House dog a tradition continued right through to Bo the current white house dog! This is also symbolised in the memorial...

Of course just one photo we took whilst at tea with the Obama's!!

With that we returned to the hotel, a bath!! We could have salted the sea with salt we had on our skin today....that is what we had some SALT and vinegar Crisps to and of course the McDonalds fries earlier replenishment!!!!!

Without a ruler it was difficult to determine the actual distance walked today....I think it was around 13 ½ miles...well done Chris!!! And with that knowledge safely in his little head and the idea that NYC will be easier because it will have McDonalds fairly regularly and everything is gridded!! With that we crashed out!! Looking forward to the last Amtrak Journey tomorrow and our final destination THE BIG APPLE woohoo!! (Sorry Ma...going to Tony's on Friday or Saturday....book a last minute flight??!!)

The Adventures of Mongo and The Boy Written and experienced by

Kate ‘The cunning deceiver’ Davies

And Chris ‘Please note that in 1814 we burned the Capitol, White House and Supreme Court... All Washington’s buildings are indirectly thanks to British engineering...’ Davies