Washington Dc Day 4

Another beautiful day in Washington DC! Well, it was pretty cold tonight coming home, but beatiful otherwise. This morning we couldn't leave too early because I had to pick up a prescription for my ear infection and the pharamacy didn't open until 9 am. So, once that was finally out of the way and we got picked up, it was nearly 10 am. We started the day by going to the Pentagon. When you get off the subway, you are right next to the building and from up close, it looks like just that...a building. Besides the millions signs saying it is the Pentagon, you really can't even tell. Well that and the security EVERYWHERE. They didn't do tours so we walked around the building to go see the 9/11 Pentagon Memorial. While there, Jess started filming the memorial and then pointed her camera at the building. Almost immediately, she was told to turn off the camera as filming the actual building was not allowed. No problem. A little while later, she was filming the ground as the memorial had some commemorative stone. A new guard came over and told her to stop filming and asked her what she was taping. She replied that it was NOT the building and he asked to see the camera. As he couldn't figure out how to get it to work, I had to show him all we had filmed so far of the Pentagon and the memorial and he told us to delete everything and start over. Fine....

Anyways, the memorial was nice. They had markers for each person that died there arranged by their year of birth. The ones who were on the plane were pointed towards the Pentagon while those who were at the Pentagon when it hit are facing the opposite direction. It was a very nice place.

After that, we went to Arlington National Cementary. This place was HUGE! Because it was so huge and overwhelming, we decided to do the tram tour so we could see some highlights. We got to see the Kennedy family plot as well as Robert Kennedy's seperate plot. We also say the Tomb of the Unknown which was cool because we got to see the hourly changing of the guard. We drove by some other cool plots, but we didn't get out for those. You could really spend all day there - Taft, Audy Murphy, Robert E Lee, various Chief Justices who also served in the military, Joe Lewis, etc.

After this we took the subway to the next stop on the line to see the Iwo Jima memorial statue, but after getting off we discovered it was farther from the metro than we thought and as we were worried about being to make it to the next place for a scheduled tour plus have a late lunch first, we decided not to make the walk. We took the metro to the next stop for our tour of the Kennedy Center. Upon arriving, we found out that the tour would simply be Jess and I plus one other lady from Ireland. This was awesome as it made the tour so much more personable. This was a beautiful place and we learned that not only was it a concert hall(or MANY concert halls) that bore the Kennedy name, but is actually considered a memorial much like the Lincoln or Washington Monuments. We got to see the inside of the halls, get some history, see the Presidential suites (from behind a rope), and see where they hold private schmoozing parties. It was neat because all the art in the building were gifts from other countries. If you looked at a piece of art or sculpture, it said what country it came from. At the end, we got to go outside on the 10th floor and see some beautiful views of the Potomoc riverside. It was a great tour made so much better because of how personal it was.

While we were on the top of the Kennedy Center, we saw a great place down the river that looked quite fun. We found out it was a riverfront where many fine restaurants sat on the river in Georgetown. Jess and I decided to go there for dinner. We ended up eating at a restaurant right on the river(there were 6 very nice restaurants right there on the river), and having a beautiful view. We could have stayed there for a long time if it wasn't for how cold it suddenly got once the sun went down! Still, it was a beautful place.

Tommorow is a tour of the Capitol and the International Spy Museum.