"And you can hear it in my accent when I talk, I'm an Englishman in NewYork" - Sting

Thursday 27th April

5 o'clock and my phone was going off to get us out of bed. In the end, I ended up snoozing it, as Charlotte's wasn't due to go off until half past. We pretty much got up and headed out, as our bags were packed the night before and we were ready to go. There was no free breakfast from the hostel, so we had no reason to hang around or ask for some early bagels, so we walked the 10 minutes to the nearby greyhound station. Unsurprisingly, the bus was really busy but we did manage to get our seats together, as usual. The journey was scheduled to take 2 hours but we weren't confident the New York traffic would hold up enough for that. We both slipped in and out sleep along the way but we both roused when the bus was starting and stopping as it approached Manhattan. It wasn't too bad in the end as, being in a bus, we could use a bus lane. This meant we skipped the backed up cars and rolled in to the bus station around 20 minutes late. From the bus station, it was easy to access the metro, where we hopped on a train that took us around 20 minutes to get to our hostel, which was in the borough of Queens, just across the Hudson River. It was still early, so we couldn't check in yet, so after a quick breakfast of toast we'd had left over, we decided to head straight out. I'll stress now, Charlotte and I have both been to New York before, on separate occasions, so we weren't really heading out to do anything in particular; we were just using it as a stop to break up journeys. We walked back to the metro and rode an E train all the way to its terminus at the World Trade Centre. We weren't after the memorial though and instead, we found Broadway and headed south until we found a statue of a charging bull, that Charlotte and I had both paid visits to on our precious trips. The bull is quite famous and renowned for being anatomically realistic, to put it politely. There were huge crowds around the bull, but we managed to squeeze our way in and get a quick photo. From the bull, we headed further south, until we couldn't go any further on Manhattan island. We ended up on the prom of battery park, where we could just about make out the Statue of Liberty through the smog/fog/low cloud. Again, we'd seen it before, so didn't feel paying for the boat trip was completely necessary. As we'd missed our morning coffee, we found a Starbucks, which isn't hard in New York and rested our legs before a big walk. We were walking from the tip of Manhattan island, all the way up to Central Park, just for the fun of it. That's about 5 miles, but after just a few blocks it had seemed like we'd covered double that because of how slow we had to walk stuck behind tourists fascinated by a yellow cab or locals staring at their mobile phones. After a while, we got sweaty and tired, so decided to take a break in a 7/11, where we purchased a microwaveable burrito (I know, terrible!), a banana and a drink. The energy boost helped and we made it across to 5th avenue and up to 48th street in pretty good time. 48th marks the vague area where Times Square is, so we spent some time browsing in some shops that specialised in sporting goods before coming away empty handed and then crossed over to Times Square for a brief look around. We'd been on the look for a pin badge the whole way up and had found them for $4.99. We took the risk to wait until Times Square, where we knew there would be plenty of shops but also thought it could be more expensive.  It was a risk worth taking though, as we only had to shell out $1.99. We continued our whistle-stop stroll of Manhattan by continuing back up 5th avenue, past the plaza hotel which was featured heavily in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York and onwards into Central Park. Somehow, we'd managed to be out for almost 7 hours and we were pretty tired from all the walking. We took a seat on a bench in the park and let the world go by whilst we regained some strength in our legs. We didn't fancy criss crossing the humongous park (been there, done that) so we hunted down the nearest metro station and headed home. Once back, we were famished so we dropped our things and headed straight down to the petit kitchen to cook up our dinner. We had a few veggies left over from other dinners so made use of them and also took great advantage of the free food shelf where we found 2 half bags of pasta, which we used for dinner and a full pack of spaghetti, which we nabbed and put in our bag for future reference. It made dinner incredibly cheap, which was good, considering how much we'd spent on metro fares across New York and Philly.

I'm afraid to say that's it for New York City. It was almost as whistle-stop as our stay in Shanghai was earlier in the trip, only in New York, we felt no pressure to not miss anything, which was nice. Fingers crossed the next few weeks are a bit more interesting though.

"I'm shipping up to..."

James and Charlotte

"Oh brother are you going to leave me wastin' away, on the streets of Philadelphia" Bruce Springsteen

Tuesday 25th April

Finally, we had come to a day where our transport wasn't departing at stupid o'clock. This meant we could wake up at a decent time, make the most of breakfast by eating 3 bagels and a muffin in my case and a bagel, a bowl of cereal and a muffin in Charlotte's, and then have time to relax afterwards and pack with no real rush. In the end it probably would have been beneficial to rush as during the half an hour walk to the bus station, it started raining. Despite all the time we took, we were still an hour early for our bus but were fortunate when it showed up early and the ticket checker was willing to let us on early to get out of the cold. By the time we departed the station, it was pouring down and it didn't slow for the entire journey. When we arrived in Philadelphia, we were dumped at a roadside, somewhere near the train station. We had to find our way to the nearby metro station, where we caught a rather expensive train to a stop that was considerably closer to the hostel. Despite having been to Philly before and even having stayed in the same hostel as we were this time, I still managed to get us a tiny bit lost but it was nothing a quick look on google maps couldn't solve. We ducked out of the rain and into the hostel, for once at a time where we could check into the room immediately. We were a bit surprised by how cheap it was when we paid, but we decided not to say anything about it, just incase something was going our way for once. It wasn't, when we got to the room we were in a 16 bed dorm, despite having booked a 6 bed dorm. It was fine, because we guessed we hadn't been charged for a 6 bed but we went back to the reception to double check we were in the right place. We were informed that the 6 bed dorm we had booked about 3 months beforehand wasn't actually ready yet and we'd been put in a 16 instead because that is what they had. We were a bit annoyed at not having been told this when we checked in but we let it slide, as it had probably saved us about $60; plus, complaining wouldn't have got us anywhere anyway. Another problem was that the female bathroom was in the room, yet the male one was down some stairs and down a hallway, which seemed a bit inconvenient but again, what could we do? We had plans for our evening for once, so once we were settled we got freshened up and headed out in to the miserable weather. What's funny is that it was raining last time I was in Philly and it didn't really look like it had even stopped in the 8 years that had passed. We walked about 25 minutes to a metro station that would hopefully contain the train that would take us to the Philadelphia Phillies baseball stadium. The metro seemed unnecessarily complicated with no signposts but eventually, after stealing 50 cents off of us, a lady sat in a booth stuffing her face did help us out. We had bought our tokens from her for $4.50 and for whatever reason, she refused to give us back the change from our 5 dollar note. She managed to in the end but it seemed weird why she wouldn't in the first place. We had further complications on the train when the first one we got on terminated at the very next station and then there were no announcements, so we had to keep a keen eye out for our stop. We did make it though and the stadium, with its floodlights cutting through the gloom, was very easy to get to. We were sceptical about whether the game would actually go ahead due to the weather but there were a few diehards around, which made us think it would. We picked up our tickets from the will call booth and headed in. Before finding our seats, we picked ourselves up a hotdog each, which we'd actually been looking forward to more than the actual game. After a short struggle to find our block, we stood at the top, under cover, so we could eat our hot dogs without getting soaked to the bone. Our hotdogs were already slightly wet and cold after the long walk but we wolfed them down pretty hastily and did enjoy them. It was still quite early, so we hung around under the shelter of the stand to wait for either play to begin at 7 or play to be cancelled. The cancellation came first, at about 20 to 7. We were very disappointed but you just can't control the weather. When the steward told us it was cancelled, we enquired about a refund but she wasn't sure we would get it. They were more inclined to reschedule the game or swap the tickets to a different game. We decided to try our luck at the ticket office and stress that we were tourists who wouldn't be able to attend another game. We were surprised when he was happy to give us the refund. It was a shame to miss the game but we got $50 back, which wasn't bad. Unfortunately, it had cost us almost 10 dollars on tube fares to get there. We headed back to the metro station and hopped back on a train to the city centre and returned to the hostel. The weather had destroyed our evening plans, so we simply relaxed in the hostel and, despite our earlier hotdog, had some more of our sack of rice for dinner.

Wednesday 26th April

There was no free breakfast in the hostel we were staying in, so we really pushed the boat out and lazed in bed until almost 9. We did have to get up at some point though and after breakfast, we headed out, relieved to see that the rain had actually managed to stop. We decided to head to the furthest place we wanted to see, which was located at the Philadelphia museum of art. The museum was about a 50 minute walk from the hostel but after about half an hour, we hit a bit of a snag. There was loads of things being set up between us and the museum that restricted us from getting to where we wanted to be. It was all to do with American Football and we only managed to get so far before we were stopped as we didn't have accreditation. We didn't like where this was going but we were told we could access the museum from a side road that would take us round the back. The only problem was that we weren't there to visit the museum, it was the steps that led up to the front door we, or more accurately I, were interested in. They were made famous by Sylvester Stallone running up them in the film Rocky but it didn't look like we were going to be getting anywhere near them, let alone to run up them. We made it round to the rear entrance of the museum and asked at the reception but we were only told what we had already worked out. For a moment we considered being cultural and actually visiting the museum for its original purpose but at $20 a ticket, we didn't bother. It was yet another downer but just something else we had to get over. We walked back towards town, desperately hoping that lunch would cheer us up a bit. Seeing as we're in Philly, it had to be a Philadelphia Cheesesteak sandwich for lunch and as if luck would have it, there was a highly rated sandwich shop just at the end of the road our hostel was on. Our luck didn't end there either, as we walked in the door at bang on 12, just beating the start of the lunchtime rush. We ordered our cheesesteaks in the local style of beef (meat obviously) with (with onions) provolone (the type of cheese). We picked up a side of chips and a drink each and took our seats. Our order was called within minutes and we tucked in. We were so hungry, we couldn't be bothered to go up to the counter and complain about the forgotten onions. Just as we started to eat, the shop filled out from a huge school group all wanting to order their sandwiches at the same time, so we took our time eating, just so we didn't have to surrender our seat. After lunch, it was time to actually do a bit of sightseeing. Our first stop was in Independence square, where we made the most of the free entry to see the Liberty Bell. The was only a short queue, which was a bonus and we were in the building in no time. The first part of the room was made up of a series of boards explaining the history of the bell, what it was used for and how it got its iconic crack. Before visiting, I'd received a message from my mum, claiming that a potential relative, William Hurry, was the man who rung the bell to signal America’s independence. Unfortunately, I have to dispel that myth slightly, as we read that there is no evidence to suggest that it was rung when independence was announced on the 4th July 1776 however, William Hurry did ring it to mark the reading of the Declaration of Independence, 4 days later on the 8th July 1776. It didn't actually say his name either but we found out it was William Hurry later on in the day, which I'll explain later. After the information boards came the bell itself and its safe to say it was considerably smaller than we'd imagined it. It was still good to see though and the crack was clearly visible on the front of the bell. We made our way through the baying mob and managed to get a couple of photos of the bell, before leaving them to their selfies of every possible combination possible. Apparently, you haven't had your selfie until you've had one with your baby sitting on your shoulder. After the bell, we decided to do something a little bit different and also something that you can only do in 2 cities across the USA. Philly being one obviously and Denver the other, and that was to go and visit the fully operational US mint. It was on the same street as independence square but one block further up, so it only took us 5 minutes to walk there. As with all US government buildings, galleries, tourist attractions and, probably, McDonalds, we were ID’d and had our bags scanned before entering. The bottom 2 levels of the mint contained various commemorative coins and medals that had been minted over the years, as well as historical notes of when coins were released and so on. The top floor was the highlight though, as we were taken through every step that was involved in minting all the coins that are in circulation. Unfortunately, we were unable to take photos and there was far too much information to commit to memory, so you'll just have to take our word for it. As we read all the boards, they were punctuated by windows looking down in to the mint floor where we could see huge rolls of copper that were being fed through machines in order to be made into pennies. We could see some of the processes but mostly just the machines that the coins were inside. It was a pleasant way to spend an hour on a cloudy afternoon in Philadelphia. Afterwards, we tried our luck at getting tickets to a tour of the Independence Hall, which is where the Declaration of Independence was signed and where William Hurry rung his bell. We'd dropped the ball though, as we needed to pre book and tours were fully booked for the day. It was unfortunate but we consoled ourselves by getting an ice cream from a nearby shop called the Franklin Fountain. It was an expensive tat but the scoops we got made it pretty worth while. After our ice cream, we decided to call it a day and we headed back to the hostel. Whilst we were relaxing in our room, I was writing the blog and doing some research on William Hurry and found out that he was buried in the Old Pine Presbyterian Church Cemetery, which was only a 10 minute walk from our hostel. On a whim, I decided we would go and hunt down his grave in order to kill some time before dinner. We found the church easily enough but the graved proved slightly harder. When you're looking for a grave in place that made up of tightly packed graves, it isn't the easiest thing. We did a couple of round and came up empty handed. On our final look round, Charlotte walked up a path that we hadn't looked at yet, Charlotte found him, complete with his own 13 starred US flag and plaque describing his role during the war for independence. The plaque is how we found out the information regarding the ringing of the bell on the 8th and not necessarily the 4th. We were pleased with our find and, if he is a relative, it seemed a nice touch that we could hunt him down to his resting place. We were ready for our triumphant return but were stopped in our tracks by a locked gate. We tried every other gate in the Cemetary but found all of them locked. We'd passed the guard with his bunch of keys but he never said anything about the Cemetery closing at any particular time, so it was a bit weird that he'd managed to lock all of the gates without us noticing. It was also pretty creepy to be locked in a Cemetery. Furthermore, there was a group of people in the locked church, sat in a circle, who were clearly undertaking some form of ritual before coming out to abduct us and then burn us like in The Wicker Man. We tried each gate a few times but always came up against a padlock. We eventually gave in and knocked on a door of an adjacent building, where a heavily bearded African American gentleman came and answered the door. He seemed incredibly sceptical that we would have been locked in the cemetery, which probably meant he thought​ we were trespassing. He still came out, with his own bunch of keys, to let us out a gate. Only, when he got to the gate, he just pulled it open without touching a padlock. That was even weirder because that gate had been the one we'd tried to get in in the first place and it had been locked from the start. We thanked him and left, feeling a little bit stupid. When we got back to the hostel, dinner time was fast approaching and for once, we weren't cooking. The hostel were putting on their weekly free pasta dinner tonight, so we had signed ourselves up. We'd picked a good Wednesday to be there too, as an American family were on their annual visit and they always contributed to the free pasta dinner. This time they'd prepared a salad, with some bread and garlic butter and for pudding, they'd rustled up a number of key lime pies. It all went down pretty well with us and didn't cost us a penny. We thanked them for their contribution before heading to our room to get packed and washed before getting back to the ludicrously early starts.

“And you can hear it in my accent when I talk...”

James and Charlotte

"Oh I'm weary from waiting in Washington DC" Armistice Day - Paul Simon

Saturday 22nd April

We woke to being only 2 in the room for yet another night but we're sure that that streak would end sooner rather than later. Having nobody else in the room helped with the packing, as we could turn the lights on and make as much noise as possible. We checked out just before 6 and the kind gentleman on reception gave us a few croissants to take with us. We went slightly lazy in order to get to the train station. Charlotte signed up to Uber and through that managed to get her first free ride free, so rather than walk through all the tramps in the dark, we got a 5 minute ride to the train station for absolutely nothing. Once we arrived at the station, we checked our bag, had a short sit down and were then called for boarding. There were very few of us on the train carriage, so we made sure to test as many seats as we could before making a final decision on the ones we thought we're best and the ones that were furthest away from the screaming babies. Despite having 26 hours ahead of us on a cramped train, we always enjoyed the thrill of being on them, much more than the buses at least. Right on time, we pulled out of New Orleans station and started our cruise through the Deep South. The journey took us into Mississippi, where a few people got on at the town of Hattiesburg. From there it was onto sweet home Alabama, where, when we stopped in the town of Birmingham (pronounced with emphasis on the “HAM” of course, the train filled out to pretty much packed. We wiled away the hours reading, as there was absolutely nothing to see out of the carriage windows apart from endless trees. When we left Alabama behind us and entered the state of Georgia, we were a mere 5 hours behind the UK. Our final stop before bed time was Atlanta, which we couldn't really see because it was pitch black outside.

Sunday 23rd April

We both woke up about 6, although Charlotte owned up to waking up in the middle of the night and having a midnight snack on her snickers bar, having had possibly the best nights sleep on a coach or bus we'd ever had. It was still cramped but we probably got a good 7 hours sleep, each. We even snoozed once we'd woken up, as the scenery hadn't advanced from the constant trees overnight. We weren't particularly pleased when the conductor walked along the carriage at about the 24 hour mark and announced that we would be arriving in Washington DC an hour late. That was the start of what was going to be a pretty shoddy day. The fact we sat just outside DC’s union station for about 20 minutes for what seemed like nothing, wound us up even more. It was definitely a relief to step of the train and into the chilly, fresh air of Washington. It was the coolest weather we'd had since San Francisco and it was a welcome change from the heat and humidity of the south. The next blow of the day came when we claimed our luggage in the station. Evidently, an idiotic baggage handler had decided to pick my backpack up using a padlock attached to zips. Considering the bag weighed 20kg, the poor old zips didn't stand a chance and ripped right off. It wasn't worth the effort of complaining, so we moved a few items to a carrier bag we were using and headed off. Next up, we were horrified at the possibility of having to pay $4 for a metro card, just to use it once. That price didn't even include putting the fare on. Instead, we turned around and hunted down the buses. The bus we needed turned out to be pretty elusive. So much so that when I asked a guy working there he'd never heard of it. When I showed him the route we were taking on Google, he tried to tell me that I was wrong and the route showed the metro but it clearly didn't, it was a picture of a bus and when I proved him wrong, it shut his sniggering friend up pretty sharpish. In the end, the bus cost us a measly dollar, so it was a good decision to not go by the metro. We were dropped off a short walk from our hostel, which actually gave us a few minutes of everything being fine, which was nice. It didn't last long however. We've been travelling for nearly 2 years and have stayed in loads of hostels but never once have we had to pay to store our luggage as it's too early to check in. We made sure to make the most out of our $4 and crammed everything in the fairly small locker. With our luggage stored, we headed out onto the streets of DC. It had been with the intention of seeing some sights but after some deliberation over a coffee, we decided to head to the nearby Macy’s and pick up a new bag to replace my (or should I say, my brother’s) rapidly disintegrating backpack. It had been going since before we arrived in New Zealand well over a year ago but the few weeks in the US and their incompetent baggage handlers and border security had proved too much and it was ready to be discarded. We'd planned on being in and out of Macy’s but after almost 2 hours, we were still there. Eventually, we picked a wheelie hold-all, which would be a nice change from a heavy rucksack but just would be the same. It was a bargain though so we bought it, despite the cashiers best efforts to overcharge us, twice. As it was just approaching 3, we decided to drop the bag off and check in at the same time. This was when we were really ready for the day to end. They told us that we would have to complete our booking (of 2 nights) in separate rooms, which, considering 26 hours on a train and a pretty poor day since then, went down with us like a lead balloon. There had obviously been a cock up with bookings and we were expected to take the fall for their mistake. They wanted us to check in, to then check out the following morning, to then not be able to check in until 3pm again to then have to check out. That just wasn't going to fly with us and we made it clear to the receptionist, who was quite rude and not very accommodating, that we weren't happy. We tried to come up with some alternatives, like just move us into a different room immediately, but she wasn't having us. After a short while of us moaning, a lady came down from some stairs and tried to calm the situation a tad. All of a sudden, after finding out we were HI members (which we were under the impression you had to be to stay in HI ), we were offered a free upgrade to a private room for our second nights stay. We were hardly going to turn that down, despite the huge inconvenience of having to check out and check in still, and accepted the offer. As ever, we were making friends wherever we went and budded them fairly well with barely a thank you. We left our backpacks in the locker for the time being, as we just wanted to make the most of our $4 dollars we'd spent, so we just ditched the new bag in the room and headed back out to what would hopefully be a nice relaxed afternoon. The supermarket we'd been told to go to was awful, so that wasn't a great start but after having nothing but a breakfast bar to eat all day, the Subway we had went down a treat. From Subway, we walked to the White House, to see if president Trump was at home. We couldn't tell for sure but we guessed that due to the large security presence, he most probably was. From there we headed down to the national mall, with its centre piece, the Washington monument, which is a tall, narrow obelisk. We didn't see the worth of walking right up to it, as then you wouldn't be able to see it, so we walked along the edge of the rather grimy reflection pool, towards the Lincoln memorial. Old Abe is housed within a building that doesn't look dissimilar to the White House, only significantly smaller. Within the building, the sculptor of Abraham Lincoln is sat on a chair, looking out towards the Washington monument. There were large crowds everywhere, even quite a lot on a Sunday afternoon, which made it quite hard to get good photographs but we were still pretty pleased with what we were getting down after a late arrival and the distraction of the bag. We still hadn't finished either. After Lincoln, it was time for Martin Luther King, who was located just off the main mall, not far from the Potomac river. Mr.King’s monument was arguably the best so far. It wasn't huge but it was a very accurate sculpture, even showing the veins in his hands. Just beyond the monument was quotes from his famous “I have a dream” speech. We did intend to see even more of the monuments nearby but due to the poor quality of our map, we ended up going in the wrong direction and seeing as it was getting dark and we were a fair walk from our hostel, we thought we'd best start to head back. We paid a quick visit to a different supermarket, which was much better than our first effort, although we did stand in a queue for about 15 minutes just to buy a couple of apples and a loaf of bread. When we got back, it was a relief to know that the day would soon be over and hopefully, the following one would be a marked improvement. After such a late, large lunch, neither of us were particularly hungry but we had some plain rice, just to have had something. After the grimy train and all the sweat, a freshen up was a welcome relief. Sadly though, we had to tolerate a snorer in our room; thankfully, it was only for one night.

Monday 24th April

The man did end up snoring, all night but the ear plugs we shoved in our ears went some way towards muffling out the noise. When we woke up at half 6, we made sure to make enough noise as possible but it didn't budge the guy. At around 7, we went downstairs and checked out to check back in. It was slightly irritating to find out that we could check in immediately, which meant that the new private room had been clean overnight with nobody staying it. It made us think they could have just put us in that one straight away and saved any hassle but this hostel didn't like making things easy. When we paid the fee for the new room, it was more expensive than it had been the day before, which seemed weird but as we were in a rush, we left it for the time being. After dumping all of our things in a new room, we headed down to breakfast and wolfed down some cereal and took a muffin and a banana to go. When we exited the hostel, we deeply regretted not bringing our waterproof jackets with us, as the clouds were heavy and it was pretty clear it was going to rain any second. We didn't fancy hiking all the way back to the 8th floor of the hostel, so we braved it. We'd booked a tour at the Capitol building which was due to start at 9:20. When we had first decided to stay in Washington, we'd wanted to go on the tour of the White House however when I looked up the possibility of doing it, I found out that they'd stopped doing them for the time being. This was a tad disappointing but seeing as Trump had not long been inaugurated, maybe it wasn't a surprise. So we had to make do with a tour of the Capitol building, which was at the opposite end of the national mall to the White House. Just as we were walking around the Capitol to the visitor centre, the inevitable happened and it started to rain. To compound the misery, the centre only let a few people in at a time, so we had about a 10 minute wait standing out in the rain. It wasn't too bad in the end, as it wasn't raining too hard. Once in, we had our bags checked with no issues and headed down to the lobby. In the lobby, we got our stickers for the 9:20 tour but still had around half an hour to wait until it was time to start, so we passed the time by exploring a museum area and then appreciating the numerous statues that were dotted around. They all had which state the subject of the statue represented, the highlight of which was King Kamehemeha, who, maybe obviously, represented Hawaii. Eventually, the time came to queue for the tour. We ended up starting over 10 minutes late, probably because the tours run every 10 minutes and the film we were shown to start the tour, was 13 minutes long. The film was just 13 minutes of “The United States of America is the greatest and only country in the world” which goes down well with the hordes of children on field trips but it doesn't really go down well with the foreign tourists, like Charlotte and myself. It did give a background on the Capitol building and the government structure within the United States, which was a handy precursor to the actual tour. After the film, we all filed out and were separated into tourists and school children, which made the tour a lot more bearable. Once we were in our group of about 15 or so, we were all asked where we were from and the tour guide, Regina, seemed to have never heard of the UK but she may have just misheard us. We started the tour in a room that was underneath the main dome of the Capitol, which contained the centre point of the city of Washington DC. The compass on the floor there divided the city up into 4 quadrants of Northwest, Northeast, Southwest and Southeast. This can be seen on the road signs of the city and may, if your completely incapable of using landmarks, help with navigation. Within the room, were some more statues and as we progressed they started to get more and more famous, although within this first room, there were none that we'd had ever heard of. The second room on our visit was directly above the one we had just been in and was called the rotunda, as it was the room who's roof was the actual dome. Finally, the statues started to become a bit more recognisable and we could easily make out Ronald Reagan, Abraham Lincoln and Dwight.D.Eisenhower. Regina told us about the room and also about the 8 huge paintings that adorned the walls of the circular room. Only, she did it in an American way. She described one of the painting, or the one in the ceiling, I can't remember, as the most famous painting in the world that's in a building of paintings. It seemed a pretty ignorant thing to say considering some of the other works of art around the world but we didn't call her out in it. Anyway, we'd never seen or heard about it until then. The large painting on the wall depicted scenes from the American war of Independence, which was of course fought against the English. From the Rotunda, we moved into our final room, which was where the House of Representatives used to be. After a while, it became too full, cramped and noisy, so they moved just down the hall in to bigger offices. Again there were yet more statues that had started to become a wee bit more obscure again. After seeing the 3 rooms, our 45 minute tour was done with and we were led back to the beginning by our tour guide. We hadn't seen the actually House of Representatives or the senate but, if we wanted, we could pick up passes to do so. Seeing as we were tight on time, we didn't bother. By the time we left the Capitol building, it had stopped raining and we had a nice dry walk along the national mall to our first museum. We'd picked 3 to visit out of many and deliberately avoided the art ones. First stop was the national air and space museum, which contained numerous exhibits about space shuttles, the space race and flight in general. We spent an hour or so exploring the exhibits before getting a bit bored and heading off. As we couldn't take any food with us to the Capitol, we'd had to leave lunch back at the hostel, so seeing as midday was approaching, we started to head back for some food. We made a quick stop in an attempt to get Charlotte some new jeans but ended up failing miserably.

After lunch, we trudged though the rain back towards the national mall and headed for the museum of American history, which, in the end, didn't contain many interesting exhibits. Although the one with Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street was worth a chuckle. After our second museum, we walked along to the Washington monument, where we could get a photo of the White House in the rain, before turning back on ourselves and heading for the National Archives. This was to be our final stop of the day, as we were pretty tired and the constant rain was starting to get us down. It actually turned out to be the most interesting of the museums we visited, with clear exhibits that covered a lot of bills and amendments. One great fact I picked out was that it took 106 less to repeal prohibition than it did to sanction it. The final visit in the archives was to the big three exhibits of the bill of rights, the constitution and the declaration of Independence. They were busy and a bit of a let down as they weren't actually the genuine articles, the room they were in was so dark you could hardly see them and the writing on them was so faded we just had to take their word for it that there was anything in them. And we couldn't take photos but we did get the memories. I know I sound very negative but we did enjoy ourselves. We tried in another shop for some jeans on the way home but with none Charlotte liked, we left empty handed again. We got back and were relieved to take the weight off of our feet, so much so that Charlotte succumbed to sleep. We managed to rustle up a dinner of rice and veg which filled us up nicely.

We'd enjoyed DC, It had been nicer than we'd expected but we could have done with a bit more time there however, given a week, I think we still would have struggled to cram everything in.

"Oh brother are you going to leave me waistin'away..."

James and Charlotte