Washington DC: The Jury's (Not) Out for Walks

More reunions were in store for both of us in Washington D.C., the capital city of the United States. However, we were able to combine the reunions with some excellent sightseeing in a place where neither of us had been before. Well, that was not an entirely correct statement, because Kyle had previously been to Washington D.C., back in 1998.

During that visit, he had come down with an extremely horrible case of strep throat (that's the same as tonsillitis for the British people reading this), which left him hospital-bound the night before he had flown to the city, and also left him bedridden during most of the short weekend that he had planned to be there. Needless to say, he only managed a short trip out one afternoon to see some of the main sights, and everything was a bit of blur in his memory. This trip was much better for him and also for Dan, who had been very keen on travelling to the well-known city for quite some time.

In keeping with the style of our New York City travel journal (which you could read by clicking the previous journal entry link at the bottom of this story), we'll introduce the characters whom we were reunionising (for the American and British people reading this, that's actually a word we just made up) with during the three days of our trip. First, there was Sally and Bart, a married couple who were expecting a new baby at the end of the year. Second, there was Erin, a single woman whom we had gotten to know in London through a couple of friends of ours, Brett and Melissa.

Who were Sally and Bart, you may ask? Dan went to the University of Greenwich, in London, and during one of his years there, he befriended a girl who lived in the same residence hall as him. Sally was an exchange student from the US, originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, and only studied there for a year. During that year, they were both part of a group of friends who constantly hung out and partied together. After the year was finished, she went back to the States to finish her degree, but once another year in the US passed, she ended up returning to the UK, to Cardiff, to continue her studies. Bart received second billing out of the two of them, but only because he and Sally were married long after she left the UK and because Dan had never met him. Now that the trip to D.C. has completed, they both receive equal billing.

Sally and Bart lived in Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, a place that was rich with American history and also a place that was set in a beautiful mountain valley. We, unfortunately, did not get to visit their place and will have to save that for the next time we are in the area. Despite them living an hour and a half from D.C., they managed to visit with us in the capital city, both of them on the first day and Sally on the following two days.

If you asked who Sally and Bart were, then you will probably now ask who Erin was; are we right? Erin worked for the same company where Kyle worked, and she was working on a large project in the United Kingdom (in Leeds) with a couple of good friends, Brett and Melissa. Brett and Melissa went to the University of Oklahoma, where Kyle completed his degree, and were married shortly after graduating. Brett also worked for the same company and he was sent to work on the large project in the UK, too.

Erin met Melissa, who started working for the company as well, and then we both met Erin on a weekend trip up to Leeds to see Brett and Melissa a few years ago. Whilst she was working in the UK, Erin came down to London a couple of times and we hung out whenever she was in town, thus building a friendship. Erin had since left the project in the UK and returned to Washington D.C., where her home office was based. It was at Erin's place that we stayed during our trip.

Erin lived within the Washington D.C. city limits, close to all of the major sights in the city. We were able to walk or take a nearby subway everywhere that we need to go; however, with Sally in town on each of the days that we were there, she was able to drive us around to various places. Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, we should start with the day we arrived, because most of that afternoon was spent visiting a town in Virginia, so we could claim to have visited state #5 on our summer trip around the United States. Since Washington D.C. was not located within a state in the US, we won't be claiming state #6 until we get to our next destination in Tennessee (Nashville).

We had travelled early by train (on Amtrak) from Penn Station in New York City, New York, to D.C. and, when we arrived at Union Station, our final destination after our train had passed through various American cities such as Philadelphia and Baltimore, Sally and Bart were parking their car at the station, ready to pick us up. Erin was finishing a major project at work and she was in the office that afternoon, so she couldn't have met us there. Once Sally and Bart made their way to the train platform where we were waiting, we exchanged hugs and handshakes before heading out to their car, walking through the expansive station and admiring it the entire time. The place was really nice throughout and the main concourse was quite beautifully designed and decorated. Inside Sally's car was a large sack of goodies for us, which included many chocolate bars from England, homemade cookies, postcards and a couple of Virginia souvenirs. Nice!

Alexandria was the small town in Virginia that we were taken to and it was located about 6 miles outside of Washington D.C., on the west bank of the Potomac River. When we arrived there, we walked along the main street of town with Sally and Bart, looking for a place to eat lunch. The town reminded us of an English town; we were able to see the colonial influence remaining from the days when the northeastern part of the US was claimed by Great Britain.

The town of Alexandria was incorporated into the United States in 1779, even though British settlers had lived in the area since the mid-1600's, when 6000 acres had been granted to an English ship captain named Robert Howson, in recognition of him bringing 120 people to live in Virginia. Early trade was based on tobacco, flour and hemp and Alexandria became a principal colonial trading centre and port, handling both imports and exports. We found out that Alexandria was ceded by the state of Virginia in 1789 to become part of the newly created District of Columbia (Washington D.C.), but was retroceded to the state of Virginia again in 1847. Throughout its history, Alexandria had been involved in various wars, including the war against France in the mid-1700's, the War of 1812 and the Civil War.

The restaurant we chose to eat at was called Austin Grill and served up tex-mex food and a variety of sandwiches and burgers. We shared a dish that was appropriate for that day, since we had experienced a night of eating and drinking the day before in Manhattan. The "Hangover Burger" was really delicious, really large, really greasy and really delicious (we know that we have said that twice now). The complimentary chips and salsa served to us before the meal, and also the free refills on our soft drinks, went down a treat. Sally and Bart enjoyed their food, as did we, and we left the place feeling refreshed, but very lethargic with full bellies.

Walking further down King Street was necessary after the meal, in order to try and walk off some of the gluttonous meal in which we had partaken. The main street continued for quite a distance and, after walking for several minutes, we cut back on another street to return to Sally's car. We made a pitstop on the way because everyone needed to use the bathroom (that's the same as a loo or toilet for the British people reading this, as if you didn't know). Once we were all back in the car, Sally drove us to the riverfront, so we could take a photo of the state of Maryland's border, across the water.

After visiting the quaint riverfront area, we were driven back into Washington D.C., where we went to Arlington National Cemetery. Only Sally had been to the cemetery before, so it was a first for Bart as well as for us. The place was enormous and expanded across several acres, as far as the eye could see. The cemetery was set on and around quite hilly ground, which offered up great views of Washington D.C. from afar. We were able to see many historic sites in the distance including the Washington Monument and the US Capitol building.

Inside the cemetery, the majority of the headstones were white and formed in a similar shape. Each of the headstones was inscribed in the same way, so when we looked out across a field at a large group of gravestones, a sea of white markers appeared before our eyes. The place was quiet and peaceful, a perfect setting for all of the soldiers (and in some cases, their wives and family members) who had fought so bravely throughout the years in various wars. Despite thousands of lesser known people's graves, we passed by some gravestones for more well-known people, including Bobby Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, the astronauts who died during the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion in the 1980's (remember the first teacher who was sent in space) and, of course, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Our walk through Arlington Cemetery took over an hour and the weather was really nice and hot. Afterwards, we were ready to cool off in Sally's car again whilst heading to Hotel Washington, which was the agreed meeting point for us to convene with Erin that evening for dinner and drinks. We arrived there first and waited in line (that's the same as a queue for the British people reading this, but we know that you know that one, too), since the wait for a table was at least 15-20 minutes. Just as we were seated, Erin arrived and we introduced her to Sally and Bart after giving her a hug.

Dinner was good at the hotel's rooftop restaurant, Sky Terrace, where we spent a couple of hours, admiring the view (we could easily see most of the major sights, including The White House and Washington Monument) and catching up with everyone. We all shared an appetiser (we would normally call it a starter, since that is what we call them in the UK, but we are writing all of our journal entries with a more Americanised focus, which was a request from one of our readers, whom we will not name, but who is reading this story now because she is one of the highlights, and it is not Erin).

The appetiser was called panazanella and was a tomato bread salad tossed with onion, basil, fresh mozzarella, olive oil and balsamic vinegar. For a main course, we shared a large chicken caesar salad, to try and avoid filling our bodies with any more heavy food. Erin and Bart enjoyed beers, but we chose not to have them to continue our detox from our New York trip (this detox ended a few hours later). Sally, as you would expect, didn't drink because she didn't want her baby to be born with two heads. A large, make that enormous, dessert was consumed that evening by the five of us, and we all struggled to finish it. The thing looked quite tasty when we read the menu, but the cake was such a dense and large piece of chocolate cake with several layers of cake and several layers of icing, that we just had to stare at the leftovers. Heavy, heavy, heavy.

After dinner, we bid adieu to Sally and Bart, who had an hour and a half drive back to their home. We found out the next day that they made it in an hour, which was really good time. Erin drove us from Hotel Washington back to her place to show us where she lived and for us to drop off our suitcases. We walked from her apartment to a nearby bar called Logan's Tavern, which was located near the Dupont Circle area of the city. We had a beer then, because our food had digested by the time we had arrived, but we all grew tired after the round of drinks and we walked back to Erin's house immediately after finishing.

Erin had been called to serve jury duty the following morning and so we called it a night when we returned to her place. She was feeling confident that she wouldn't be picked to serve on the jury for the entire case, which was scheduled to run over the three days that we were there. The next day, she found out that she was actually a prime jury member target for lawyers; she was picked to serve on the jury and was required to be in the courtroom from 9:30am until 5:00pm for that day and the following two.

It was a bummer that Erin was not able to hang out with us during the day, but we managed to meet up with her each evening; during the day for the next two days, we hung out with Sally. On the first day of Erin's jury duty, we had a small breakfast at Erin's place and then got ready, waiting for Sally to drive into town. She made it to the city just before lunch and she took us to the National Cathedral to meet up with a friend of hers (Lucy), who was her former boss and a fellow journalist. We went to lunch at Cafe de Luxe in Cathedral Heights and had delicious food there, a grilled chicken sandwich, salad and french onion soup. It was great meeting Lucy, who eerily reminded us of Kyle's cousin, Kimberly.

When lunch was finished, we went into the huge gothic cathedral to enjoy its splendor and the tower views of Washington D.C. We both chuckled to ourselves at the 7-storey elevator (Brits, you know that is a lift now, from reading our previous "US and A" journal entries) inside the cathedral, since similar cathedrals in Europe were much too old to have anything other than small stairs to ascend to the top. Once we had completed a tour around the holy place, we left very satisfied with our afternoon's lunch and first stop. The next stop for the day was the National Archives, where we saw The Declaration of Independence, The Bill of Rights and the Constitution of the United States. We also viewed one of the original four Magna Carta documents, which was on display there.

Sally had parked her car outside the National Archives, in a metered spot. We put enough change in the meter to cover our visit to the archives and, after we exited the archives, we added some coins so that we could walk around the city, to some of the other famous memorial and monument spots. Our walk lasted almost two hours and we started by walking to The Mall, the long grassy area between the Capitol building and the Washington Monument. We walked along The Mall and when we passed the Washington Monument, we walked in front of the Tidal Basin, which was the area of water in front of the Jefferson Memorial. We were too far away from the memorial to go inside and we needed to move on to other sights, so we just viewed the building from afar.

The World War II Memorial was next on our walk, followed by the Reflecting Pool. The pool was disgusting and dirty with a lot of goose poop along the sides of the water. Also, the water was green, appearing as though it had not been cleaned for months, or years (where does federal funding go?). We were happy to move on to the Lincoln Memorial, where Sally sat down to rest and we went inside to gaze upon the tall, seated statue of Abraham Lincoln, one of America's most important Presidents from the past.

Around the time that we were leaving the Lincoln Memorial, Erin called us to tell us that she had left the courtroom for the day and that she would meet us near Sally's car. We received a call back from Erin a few minutes later; she couldn't find the car. What happened was not good, not good at all. Apparently, there was a sign on a metal pole nearby the parking spot that Sally's car had been occupying, stating that there was no parking after 4:00pm.

After leaving the Lincoln Memorial, we walked past the Vietnam War Memorial before hopping in a taxi towards the parking spot. We arrived there, where Erin was waiting, at around 5:15pm, much later than the cutoff point for parking. Sally was not the only one worrying at the point; Erin had seen tow trucks hauling off many cars from the same street where Sally parked, and we were worried that it was our fault for not checking the parking restrictions more closely.

Since we had ridden in a taxi to the parking spot, we were able to get the driver to take us to the pound where Sally's car was taken. Erin had found out where we needed to go before we met up with her and we were whisked quickly away to retrieve Sally's car. It was fortunately at the pound and picking it up was a fairly uneventful occasion, even though the guy working in the trailer-park-mobile-home -converted-office was a really scary redneck that no doubt would have killed us and cooked us for dinner, had it been dark.

Sally drove us back into downtown Washington D.C., happy to have her car back, but not happy to have to pay a fine for parking illegally. We went to dinner at Rosa Mexicana's, where they made tasty homemade guacamole in front of us. We enjoyed some frozen pomegranate margaritas, but Dan had to sneakily drink some of Kyle's because he had forgotten his passport that evening. Besides the guacamole, we all shared some main dishes - tapas style - including queso, shredded beef enchiladas with mole sauce and chicken quesadillas. That may not sound like much food, but we had a lot of tortilla chips with salsa and two huge portions of homemade guacamole, plenty of food to satisfy four hungry people.

Sally had to make her way back after dinner, so we said our goodbyes until the next day. We walked back to Erin's house from the restaurant, a brisk walk through several city blocks that took us about 20 minutes. At Erin's, we all changed into our pyjamas (Americans, that really is the way that the word is spelled in the UK!) and decided to watch one of the DVDs that we had brought with us. "Riding the Bullet" was a slightly older film, adapted from a story written by Stephen King. The movie was hard to follow, slow and boring and we have to thank Erin for being a trooper and watching it with us!

Let's go through our last day in Washington D.C. as quickly as possible - it will be better for you, better for us. We tried to get tickets for a tour at the Bureau of Printing and Engraving, to see how American money was made, but we got there too late and there were no tickets left. People arrived at 6:00am to line up for tickets, but we got there after 10:30am... go figure. Two good things happened on the way to the museum, though: (1) we each ate a delicious hot dog from a street vendor, and (2) we found out that our friends, Brett and Melissa, were going to have a baby. We got a call from Melissa during our walk to the Bureau building; the news was very exciting indeed!

Since we failed at the money-making museum, we lost our sightseeing interest for the day. Plus, it was hot and we had already walked quite a distance that morning. When we arrived at the Spy Museum, which was next on our agenda, we decided to avoid going inside because the tickets were really pricey (over $16, or £8 each) and, as we mentioned, our interest had declined massively; we decided to hang out and walk around instead.

We "hung out" for half an hour inside McDonald's, waiting for Sally to arrive in D.C. for our afternoon's activities. Eating food and having soft drinks gave us some much needed energy and we then decided to try and see one sight in D.C. before Sally arrived. She was still on her way from Shenandoah Valley, so we walked several blocks to see the White House. It looked a lot smaller than we thought it would, since we couldn't get that close, due to the guards and the barriers in front of the lawn. It was still nice to see it, though.

We made our way back to Erin's house in a taxi after seeing the White House. Sally arrived not long after us and she drove us to the British Embassy, so Dan could get pages added to his passport, which was almost full. Once we arrived at the embassy, after passing nearly every other country's embassy on Massachusetts Avenue, he quickly found out that pages were no longer added. Instead, he would have to apply for and purchase a brand new passport, which would have cost him over $250 (about £125!) and would have to be taken care of the following morning, when we were due to leave for Nashville, Tennessee. He said "no thanks" and decided to chance the few remaining pages that he had, hoping that he wouldn't get turned away from any future visits to new countries this year, due to the lack of space in his travellers' id.

Sally drove us to Georgetown after leaving the British Embassy and we saw a movie with her. All of the walking over the past couple of days was taking its toll on her, being pregnant, and on us, being lazy from having spent over a month in the States; this meant that we were all happy to sit in a cool, comfortable movie theatre for a couple of hours. We watched a dumb comedy and ate stale pretzel bites with chemically enhanced, processed (nasty) cheese, but still enjoyed getting some rest and relaxation. Georgetown was a very quaint area of D.C., with small streets and buildings that resembled a picturesque small town in England.

Dinner that evening was with Erin, after she finished her jury duty. Sally took us to Erin's house to pick her up, and the four of us headed to Sushi Taro, one of Erin's favourite Japanese restaurants in D.C. Finding a parking spot was a nightmare, but whilst Dan and Sally looked for one, Kyle and Erin waited inside the restaurant for a table to come free. When parking was accomplished, Kyle and Erin were still waiting, but we all had a drink and ate some edamame to pass the time. Before we knew it, we were seated and we ordered a lot of appetisers and sushi. We shared tempura vegetables with Erin and Sally and we ate sushi with Erin. Sally couldn't eat sushi since she was pregnant, so she ordered a chicken noodle dish instead, which ended up not tasting very nice.

After dinner, Sally left to head home - both she and Dan were a little sad that they would not be seeing each other again this year - and we went with Erin for a couple of beers at a bar called The Big Hunt. The place was really laid-back, with pool tables and several areas for people to sit in whilst drinking. We ended up sitting at the bar, talking with the bartender, who was Jason Lee's twin (not literally, but they looked extremely similar to each other), and admiring the piercings and tattoos on many of the other bar staff there. A couple of beers was all that any of us could handle, because it was getting late and we were getting tired. Back at Erin's, we exchanged some music before heading to bed.

Okay, that day's summary wasn't really that quick after all, was it? You can't say we didn't try... At least, now all we have to tell you about is what we did the following morning before leaving for our next destination. We said goodbye and thanks to Erin when she left for jury duty, we packed our things, left her house, walked to the nearest subway station, took the metro to the airport, checked in, boarded our plane and left Washington D.C. Now that was a quick summary for you!