Washington D.C.

For the next part of my trip, I headed to Washington D.C. on a 19 hour bus journey. The journey was very tiring and uncomfortable but way cheaper than flying, and I got to see parts of America that you wouldn't see otherwise. We arrived on the Monday morning and headed straight to our hostel to drop off our bags. Once we'd freshened up, we headed back into the city to start some sightseeing. Our first day consisted of walking along the National Mall, starting at the Capitol Building and finishing at Lincoln Memorial. It is about a two mile walk between the two, but there are plenty of things to see, including all the museums, such as the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, the Washington Monument and the Reflection Pool. Once you get to the end of the National Mall, you come to the Lincoln Memorial, which I'm sure everyone recognises. The building itself is very grand and the statue inside is huge and very lifelike. We also walked past the White House, which we didn't think was very impressive. It wasn't until we left D.C that we realised we'd been at the back entrance! After walking around for a few hours, we decided to retire to the hostel to catch up on some sleep.

The next day, we visited the Natural History Museum. In D.C, the majority of the museums are free and are a great way to get out of the heat and see some great exhibitions. The Natural History Museum is pretty much what you would expect; there's a lot of animals, exhibitions about evolution etc. We spent a few hours in there and then decided to take a quick look in the National Archives before we went to get some dinner. The National Archives houses loads of historical American documents, the most famous being the Declaration of Independence. Unfortunately, you aren't allowed to take photos in the National Archives, but we did get to see some cool documents.

On our third day in Washington D.C, we decided to take the free National Mall bus round to a few other monuments that we hadn't seen yet. These included the Jefferson Memorial, the FDR Memorial and the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. These three memorials are placed along the river and there is a nice walk between them all. The FDR memorial was particularly nice as it was set back within the trees and was really spread out along the river. It featured a lot of inspirational quotes and pretty fountains, which made a change to the grand marble and stone of some of the other memorials.

After visiting the memorials, we carried on to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. We saw lots of space craft and aeroplanes and learnt lots about the history of air travel and the future of space travel.

Thursday was our last day in D.C. and we were meeting up with a few friends from camp who happened to be there at the same time as us. First, we visited the Holocaust Museum, which was really interesting. We spent around three hours in there, and I feel I learned more about the Holocaust than I ever learned at school. After going to the museum, we met up with our friends and took another walk along the National Mall.

Before visiting D.C, I didn't really know whether I would enjoy it but I ended up really liking the city. It was nice to visit all the monuments as well as spend time looking round the museums. I feel like D.C is a lot different to the other cities I visited on my trip and would definitely recommend it.