WASHINGTON.

The city holding the history of a nation, and knowledge for generations. 

 Captains Log Day 8 – 12/12/14 11:53pm. United
Airways

Its a very unpleasant
sensation to wake up with a pool of
saliva on your chest. I wake up from my comatose like state and start to piece
together the events of the last 4 days, hoping that the innocent couple sitting
next to me on this flight have not realised the salivated lake which had formed
on my chest or the deafening snoring going on for the last 2 hours…

A combination of events
had contributed to this unconscious state, a result of our adventures in the
nations capital Washington DC.

Yes we had landed, we had
finally made it on to US soil! Our adventure till now with Iceland and
Amsterdam were a mere distant memory compared to what lay ahead. Land of the
Free.

Wing Commander and I took
no time to leave the airport, to make our way to our accommodation which lay in
the central part of Washington DC – the only issue was that we had landed in
the ‘other airport’. Which meant our US
journey had to start with a bus ride, a train ride and then a 30 minute walk.
Taking about 2 hours to check in to our hotel room – which was the size a
closet.

A thing worth mentioning
and in the nature of the randomness of this log as we walked to our hotel room
we crossed an african american guy sitting on the side of a window sill with a
large amount of smoke coming from him. Thinking that he is probably smoking
some medicinal stuff we dismissed it. As we walked closer the fragrance was amazing..
it smelt like Incense. Confused both of us looked at each other. We approached
closer with the smell of incense even more distinct. We were right this dizzy
pirate had a handful of burning incense in his hand. Still confused and not
sure of why we continued to walk past him. Any ideas?

Despite being 11pm when
we arrived both Wing Commander and I were keen and ready to explore the
Presidential City. Dropping off our bags and rugging up (it was freezing) we
headed off to town, our bellies hungry for food and our eyes hungry to see the
landmarks we had all grown up seeing. Walking around the first thing we noticed
was the lack of people, the place had massive roads, large buildings but… no
people, i mean i know it was 11pm and a Tuesday night, however we just expected
a barrage of people walking around. What we did see however on our little
exploratory walk was a stack of homeless people, there were some at every
corner of every street. Sleeping outside in the freezing cold, coming over to
ask for change, singing, doing some pretty crazy things. In our 3 hour walk i
think my wing commander and I had spotted at least 30 homeless people. A good
drinking game – spot the Bum have a shot! However as well as the large number
of Bums on the streets we also noticed a large number of police cars and
patrols going on, with one police car on every second block. At this point i
realised my drinking game would not be too practical.

Hunger won the Game and
we decided that it would be better to grab some food before we went for some
midnight landmark exploration. We walked around the deserted streets looking
and hoping that something was open, block after block being confronted by
closed restaurants and take-away shops. Giving up hope we went to a police
officer and asked if something was open around us, he replied “Nope – the only
thing open is McDonalds 5 blocks down in china town”. With Great reluctance
both of us accepted our fates and decided this was the only option if we wanted
some sustenance. We got to McDonalds only to find a heap of shady characters –
african americans, scary looking guys, arguing, and sitting inside, listening
to music on the phones. The place looked like something out of a movie, I was
waiting for a drive-by shooting any second. The place was like the Flinders
Street station Maccers at 2 am on a weeknight, on steroids. We ordered our food
and since it was so cold outside decided to sit inside and eat, with the
knowledge that this could be a bad idea. We ate fast, but not fast enough for
my wing commander to start getting a death stare from one of distinguished
patrons in the establishment. Scared and like mice we escaped and thanked our
stars that there were no puncture wounds on us.

The Washington Monument
was the first landmark our night time route. As we approached the structure we
could start to comprehend the massive size of this thing. it was big. It felt
like a towering skyscraper overlooking the city. The sheer size of this
structure was overwhelming and despite all the cold weather both of us just
stood and stared at it. A realisation sunk in – We had Made it to AMERICA! A
hug and a selfie later we started walking to Barrack’s Crib, hoping to see the
white house lit up in the night backdrop.
Walking over we struggled to see it. We walked around tempted to go over
a small barricaded area, at which point we saw a police officer and we went
over to him. He advised that the white house lights turn off at 11pm and that
if we had entered the area which we were heading we would have gotten arrested.
He said at this time we could of over to the back of the building and take a
photo, although it would be dark. A few snaps later we decided surviving a
mugging, a bashing and being arrested was enough for one night and it was time
to call it a night arriving at our hotel room and sleeping by 4am.

9am our alarm went off.
Wing Commander and i got prepared, our second day in America had begun and boy
did we have a heap to do. Firstly we needed some food, it was our day to
experience Fast Food in America – so using urban spoon found our fast food
chain Popeye’s Chicken and biscuit. A very random fried chicken chain. When in
Rome – Fried Chicken. It was and a heap of it.
The captain was feeling sick after having it, although this did not stop
him from grabbing Spiced Pumpkin Latte. I was surprised at how good it was!

We rushed off to the
Capitol Building only to find it was shut for the day for a special function
and we would have to return the next day for the tour. Getting some advise from
the tour guide we headed firstly to the National Library of Congress –
Classified as the most beautiful building in the United States in the inside,
it did not fail to impress. The renaissance design and architecture was like
something you would find in an art gallery in Italy or France. Home to objects
like one of the oldest Koran in the world, as well as some of the first printed
bibles and the Magna Carter, this place was a page our of history at every
corner. After a guided tour of the building we ducked off to the botanical
Gardens to view the sculptures and the model train exhibition, ensuring that we
had taken our hay fever tablets for this, the gardens were exquisite with fauna
from around the world.

The next on the list was
one of the things i had personally looked forward to the most. The National Air
and Space Museum. Home to revolutionary items such as the actual Apollo 11
command shuttle, replicas of the Curiosity Rover, the Apollo Moon lander and
the Actual Wright brothers plane (the first plane ever take successful flight).
Spending over an hour we were eventually hunted down by museum security and
asked to leave at closing time. Exhausted and our legs like Jelly the next part
of our walk made us forget the aching feet and just feel overwhelmed. We
visited Lincoln Memorial, (a giant Abe Lincoln on a chair looking over
Washington) followed by Martin Luther King Jnr, Roosevelt and finally Jefferson
Memorial. All of these were an amazing experience, we learned about history and
got absorbed by the greatness of each of these men.

The Second day was
continuing when we decided to take an Uber and head to Georgetown where our
Noob hotel concierge had told us we could buy our santa costume for Santa Con.
Georgetown was an upper market area with boutique shops and defiantly no santa
costumes. We then took another Uber to Walmart unfortunately and to our
surprise they did not stock any. disappointed we just walked around Walmart to
absorb the superstore – i wanted to go buy a gun, just because i could. Finally
we reached back to the hotel, had a bit of a nap and went for dinner to an
establishment that had a bookshop and a restaurant attached to it. A very funky
place where both wing commander and I ate and then headed home.

The last day of our
Washington visit dawned. Our bodies aching we headed back into the museum
district, first up the Capitol building. The landmark that everyone visions to
be the white house – The first image i personally thought of when i thought of
Washington – the Capitol building is the parliament of the country. We made it
on time and were able to do a tour. Spectacular.

We then went to the
National Archives and were able to see the Bill of Rights, the Constitution and
the Declaration of Independence, I was figuring out how I could steal any one
of these documents. as time was slipping away we headed to our last museum –
The museum of Natural History. This place much like the Air and Space museum
was mind boggling – Giant wales, Animals from around the world, Dinosaurs,
Mummies, this place would be a wonderland for anyone. We strolled around and in
the fastest way possible took some photos and absorbed some information. We had
to leave as we had to go see do a tour of the Washington Monument – rushing we
got to the ticket office to find the tours for the day had been sold out 🙁
disappointed we headed towards the Whitehouse to see if we could get some
photos of it from the front. This was a successful mission with no one being
arrested. Win.

Bodies battered we had
completed our Washington exploration, realising we had only scratched the
surface, we would need to return in order to cover all the landmarks with
detail.

Dad had advised that his
colleague was in Washington and we had to visit his bar/ restaurant so after
the Whitehouse we decided to head there for dinner. The issue is that we never made it to Dinner.
This uncle was extremely hospitable, too much so serving beer after beer. The
captains ship was sinking. Extremely intoxicated we left the restaurant. Stumbling
to our hotel room. The captain engaged in some shenanigans along the way, which
included stealing a pumpkin off someones doorstep and smashing it on the floor,
as well as painting the sidewalk 3 times with his recent half digested
dinner. Reaching the bed it was time to
pass-out. our flight was scheduled for 6am – the alarm set for 4am we had to
get some sleep before our 6 hour journey to San Fran. Who had known hangover to
follow would be painful.

Washington: The city
holding the history of a nation, and knowledge for generations.