Michey_b’s travelling around

Walked to Penn Station today to catch my train to DC, capital city and home of the White House, several free museums and memorials as well as the Capitol.

Journey was uneventful and caught a bus from the station to the hostel.  That night i signed up for a tour of Georgetown and a mini pub crawl organised by the hostel.  We left at 7.30pm and caught a bus to Georgetown which is a very upmarket area – and infact the last home of JFK before he became president.  We walked around the mini town which likes to be completely separate from the rest of DC, and it struck me how much it reminded me of small tourist towns back home.  I dont know why but it looks completely different from any other place i have seen in the US and when i walked up the streets especially the street with the shops and bars i was reminded of towns like Ringwood or Wimborne – (very small towns in Dorset/Hampshire, England).

We went to check out the university of Georgetown which looks a bit like Hogwarts and is the oldest Roman Catholic university in the US and has Bill Clinton listed as one of its alumni.  It is well known for the basketball team here the Georgetown Hoyas who so im told have won several championships.  The area is also known for some very famous steps from a very famous movie – any guesses?  Well i actually hadnt seen the movie so didnt know myself but guessed they were from either a horror or thriller and in fact they were filmed in the “Exorcist’.  There is a bit of pub trivia for you!!

After the tour we headed to a bar and spent the rest of the evening chatting to each other.  On thurs i headed out for my own personal tour of Washington DC.  I wandered down to the White House, which was about a 10 min walk from the hostel.  Took the obligatory photo and then headed down to where all the memorials are.  Saw the Vietnam and Korean ones and then to the Lincoln memorial.  I found a new game to play and decided to see how many different license plates from the 50 states i could get.  Needless to say i looked a bit dodgy walking around parked cars taking photos but i had fun!!  It was a bit of a trek over to the Roosevelt and Jefferson memorials and then it started to rain.  I continued walking and saw the Washington memorial, wandered past the holocaust museum and the FBI building and back through Chinatown to the hostel.  DC has not impressed me in the slightest in fact i found it rather lifeless and characterless.  I am glad i got to go however and do the touristy thing but its definately one of those places that you only need a couple of days in – unless you are a museum buff in which case you would have a field day as they are free.  It wuld be fun to be able to tour the White House but you need special permission.

And so really spent my last day hanging out at the hostel, which is cool the best part of DC and now im off to Nashville and home of JACK yee haw!!

Tags: USA

This entry was posted on Friday, January 11th, 2008 at 11:12 am and is filed under USA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.