The Centre of the Centre of the World

The first city on the winter trip with my family is Washington, DC. Yesterday Dad and I went to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum on the National Mall in the morning and then in the afternoon to another Smithsonian air and space, the Udvar-Hazy Center, out in Virginia, where they keep the planes that are too big to display in a normal building, as well as the space shuttle Enterprise.

Then today we got to take a tour of the White House and the Capitol. Not just anyone can do that, yoou have to organise it through your congressman (my friend Sean arranged it for us). The White House tour was ultra high security, of course but once we got inside it was self-guided. We saw all the stately rooms and it was pretty impressive.

The Capitol Tour was even better. A staffer took us behind the scences and all throughout the Capitol, telling us all the stories behind every little detail of the building, as well as how congress works. It was really a fantastic experience.

We also took a bus tour around the monuments. We went up the Washington Monument and saw the Lincoln Memorial. I was really amazed at just how big the Washington Memorial is. I had no idea that you can go up to the top of it; you sure can see a long way.