My mom and I got back from our Washington D.C. trip on Wednesday. We did a lot of things on the trip and I'll talk about those things we did below.
Wednesday, July 10th (Arrival)
We flew out to the Dulles International Airport in Dulles, Virginia (which is about a 44 minute trip to our hotel). During the trip to our hotel, I didn't really understand the Metro system. When I tried to pay for my first ride, I apparently looked at the wrong indicator on the gate. I thought it wasn't working and I hopped the turnstile. After a long day of waiting in lines at the airport, getting checked by the TSA, and hauling luggage around, we just wanted to relax and get some food. We went to a Subway restaurant in the Court House neighborhood of Arlington, Virginia to fill our stomachs. We ordered our food, but the Subway worker decided to joke with us. She said that my mom and I looked like a brother and a sister. My mom thanked her for the compliment and said we'd come back there. We left the restaurant with the sandwiches and we ate.
Thursday, July 11th (The 1st day of the trip)
We started our adventure for the day by taking the Metro to our meeting place for the tour of Mount Vernon we were going to do that day. We still didn't really know how to get to where we needed to be on the Metro, but my mom took a chance and trusted me and we got on a bus. Thankfully, we chose the right route and we picked the train that was traveling East towards DC. This was our first time in the District of Columbia. We got to our destination by foot and, while we were walking down various streets, we found a restaurant with Olivia's name on it. After we found the street we needed to be on, we walked over to the US Navy Memorial and tried to find our tour guide. While doing so, we found a couple from Maple Grove that was in DC for a little while. Our tour guide was named Dion and he drove us from DC to Mount Vernon. Throughout the trip he pointed out interesting facts like George Washington's favorite type of ice cream was oyster flavored, living in Old Town Alexandria is expensive, and on some homes in Old Town Alexandria there is a little plaque that shows that, early in history, the early fire department visited their home. Before we arrived, we went to a church that had George Washington's pew where he attended mass. The name of the church was Christ Church and it was an Episcopal church. My mom and I sat in the "box pew" where George Washington sat. Robert E. Lee and other historical figures/presidents attended mass at that church as well. When we arrived at Mount Vernon, we toured Washington's property (which was his plantation/estate). On site there was a museum and his tomb. His estate overlooks the Potomac River and his family that owned the estate used to own a lot of acres of land around the plantation. But they sold it and, now, people built homes on that sold land. We saw those homes on the way back. We also stopped and took pictures of Fort Washington in Maryland from where we were, across the river, in Fort Hunt, Virginia. All in all, it was a good tour and Mount Vernon was great. When taking the Metro, we still didn't know which train to take. My mom said to hop on one and I trusted her, and she was right that time. We were even because I found the right train on the way there and my mom found the right train on the way back. Also, the rain that was scheduled for that day started when we got back home. We were thankful for that and we were glad that we made it back to the hotel.
Friday, July 12th (The 2nd day of the trip)
We had to get up really early in order to get ready for the day, since we were going to visit the White House at 7:30 am. Thankfully, by this day, we had pretty much mastered the Metro system. We walked to our destination and tried not to get lost, but we did get lost a bit. We eventually stumbled upon a long line of people and we asked them if they waiting to go on a White House tour. They said yes and we joined the line. We waited in line for a long time, but we were entertained by an interesting park ranger. Apparently the White House is a national park. He told us to get into two lines that were going on the 7:30 tour and all the other people that were going on tours later than 7:30 had to wait. The park ranger passed out activity books for the kids and info about the White House for the adults in the line. We waited in line for a little while and we were subjected to multiple security checks before we entered the White House. Most of these agents were stern, but one made conversation with us when they realized that my mom and I had the same birthday. After these security checks, we entered the East Wing of The White House. We walked down a long hall that was filled with pictures of past presidents and we ended up in the White House Gift Shop. They said that this was the only time to buy gifts at The White House, so we bought something. One of the people in charge came in and said that something rare was going to happen. My mom thought that the President was going to visit us, but that didn't happen. We got a guide to tell us interesting facts and, apparently, that doesn't happen a lot. We started walking down a long hall and we saw The White House Movie Theater along the way. One interesting fact was that President Trump's first movie he saw in The White House Movie Theater was Rocketman. The President and their family get to see movies before they come out in theaters. Once we got to the other hallway, we visited many rooms. We saw their library, the Vermeil Room (a room where things like paintings are displayed), and different President's china. Our guide pointed to a partition. He said that the partition is there so that The First Family can go about their business while tours are going on. After that, we saw a lot more rooms. We saw the East Room where lots of things have happened such as state dinners and wedding ceremonies for presidents' daughters. We also saw the hallway where President Obama walked through to announce that Osama Bin Laden was dead. The next room we saw was the Green Room which was used as a dining room under President Thomas Jefferson and a formal parlor under President James Madison. The room we saw after that was the Red Room where First Ladies entertain the wives of foreign leaders. A portrait of President Reagan is across the hall from this room, because this was Former First Lady Nancy Reagan's favorite room and he wanted to keep an eye on her. Next, we looked at the State Dining Room and there's only one picture hanging up in that room. The picture is of President Lincoln, because the person who donated it would only allow it to be donated if it was the only picture hanging up in that room. On the way out of The White House we saw a piano that has been played by big artists such as Stevie Wonder. We also saw the staircase that leads up to the First Family's rooms. We left The White House and we were directed to go to The White House Visitor Center. We got lost along the way, because my phone's directions were confusing. After walking around the block of where The White House Visitor Center was and eventually finding it, we had to do more security checks. The place was a museum and a gift shop. After spending some time there, we decided to go to an unofficial White House gift shop. We spent a bunch of money there and we got a free photo of me at the presidential podium. We decided to go back to our hotel for a bit and eat some lunch. Later, we planned to go to Arlington National Cemetery. Doing this required some skill in navigating the Metro system, because we had to switch trains to go on another line. We found our way and made it there. Some highlights of the visit were seeing the tombs of President JFK and his wife and witnessing the changing of the guard.
Saturday, July 13th (The 3rd day of the trip)
We did a lot of things that day. We went to the National Archives which has things such as the Constitution and Bill of Rights on display, but we got lost going to it. Sadly, both of those items were faded and hard to read. This was because someone preserving it put it under a light for a long time which faded the text. It also was kind of like a museum. We found our way to a Hard Rock Cafe and ate there for lunch. Next, we went to a Madame Tussauds Wax Museum. All of the presidents were there and there were celebrities, sports stars, singers, and other high profile people. The only problem was that they roped off the President Obama and President Trump (along with their wives') wax figures. They had a nice camera and took pictures of me, but my mom sneakily took some photos too. Afterwards, they charged a lot for the photos and we said we didn't need any. My mom had already got some photos. We killed time there for a while before made our way to Ford's Theatre. When we got there, we were greeted by more park rangers. We made friends with one named Steve. We waited in a line outside for a little while and we were eventually let in. I thought we'd see the theater first, but there was a museum about Ford's Theatre. Before this, Steve (the park ranger) told us to sit in seats 105 and 106. He said that the President sits in seat 105 when they visit and the First Lady sits in seat 106. When we got to the theater, someone had already taken our spot. Steve put on a one man show that he wrote himself about someone that witnessed the events at Ford's Theatre on the night Lincoln was assassinated. He was pretty good and he even took a picture of us in seats 105 and 106 after the people that sat there had left. We went to the Ford's Theatre gift shop and hung out for a little while until mass. At about 5:00 pm we headed over to St. Patrick's Catholic Church for mass.
Sunday, July 14th (The 4th day of the trip)
We thought we were going to be out all day, but we weren't. We met our friend Lindsey at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History and spent some time walking around and talking. We weren't that impressed with the museum, but it was nice seeing Lindsey and seeing the original Star Spangled Banner Flag. We also saw Archie and Edith's chair from All in the Family. Lunch was a disaster, because it was very expensive and their credit card reader broke down. Also, the food was very greasy and the employees weren't that helpful. Lindsey had to leave and after that we swung by some other exhibits in the museum fairly quickly. We went home and geared up for the rest of the day, as were seeing all of the monuments in DC at night. We had to transfer to a different line again, but we figured it out. We met up with our tour guide and set off from there. Oddly enough, there was another couple from Minnesota on the bus. But this time they were from Rochester. We visited many monuments and buildings including the Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, World War II Memorial, Korean War Memorial, Air Force Memorial, Marine Corp Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, and we took a picture in from of The White House North Lawn. We even had a nice chat with our tour guide at the end of the tour while he was dropping people off. According to him, before the 1990s crime was terrible in DC and President George H.W. Bush delivered a televised address where he said that the federal government was taking over DC. This was because he believed that DC couldn't take care of itself. We had a great time on that tour.
Monday, July 15th (The 5th day of the trip)
We had to get up early after a long night which was hard. But, we did a lot of things that day. Our first stop, after getting lost a bit, was the Bureau of Engraving (where money is made). They didn't offer tickets online, so we had to get there early in order to get tickets before they ran out. We did get some, but we had to wait for another hour. We did the tour and it was pretty cool seeing how money is made, and they even said that there's another facility that does different aspects of the process of making money in Fort Worth, Texas. After that, we went to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. It was sad, but it was necessary to see in order to remember the victims of the Holocaust. Also, the museum was crowded so we had trouble trying to read things and go about the museum. After eating lunch at their cafe, we went to the Newseum (which is a museum about news). Some highlights included seeing the Berlin Wall, seeing the 9/11 steeple that survived, and looking at a piece of the airplane that crashed in Pennsylvania during 9/11. We also went on their top floor and my mom took pictures of me with The Capitol in the background.
Tuesday, July 16th (The 6th day of the trip)
We went to The Capitol that day and, in order to do this, we had to go pretty far East on the Metro. When we eventually found our way to The U.S. Capitol Visitor Center, we were confused. We had no idea where we had to be. We got in the building after some security checks and asked people where we were supposed to meet for our tour. One of the workers suggested that we should meet in front of a statue, but our tickets/email didn't mention meeting in front of any statue. After talking to various workers and standing by various statues, we weren't getting anywhere. My mom called our U.S. representative's office a bunch of times but they weren't being very helpful. We almost went in the huge line of people doing self-guided tours with headphones, but we knew that we were supposed to go on a special tour. We talked to a family from Nebraska with special badges and asked them if they were going on a special tour and they said yes. We contacted our representative's office one last time and they said they'd send an intern soon that would give us a tour. On the way to our meeting spot, my mom ran into one of her former students and they talked for a while. Eventually our people came and we went on the tour. We had two guides. One of them was David, an intern, and the other was named Shane, a high school senior training to be a tour guide. They gave us a good tour and we saw things such as the Old Supreme Court Building and a bust of Lincoln. Afterwards, I wanted to see the House and Senate in session, so my mom asked them how to get tickets. We had to go to an office building called the Cannon Building and ask for them. But before we did that, we went to the Library of Congress. But it was disappointing, because we had a weird tour guide and it was boring. After that, we went to our representative's office in the Cannon House Office Building. We got our tickets and David led us down this long hallway through which we needed special badges to get through. When we arrived in the main area, we had to decide quick whether we wanted to visit the House or the Senate. We decided to visit the House first, because it was closer. We thanked David and got in line. We had to put all of our belongings in a basket, because you can't take your stuff with you in the Senate Chamber. We were waiting for a long time before we realized that we wanted to see the Senate, so we got our stuff and got out of the line. We were able to get into the Senate after waiting in line and going through security. We saw the last vote that took place on a bill to repeal some treaty with Spain. Not much action was going on in the Senate, so we ran quick to the House. We got in and put our stuff in the basket again. But, there was a long line and people weren't coming out because there was a lot of action. We waited in line for about an hour and thirty minutes before we got in and we saw a vote and some action (debating). After that, we took a picture outside the Supreme Court.
Wednesday, July 17th (Departure)
That day we just packed in the morning. We said goodbye to our friend at Subway and ate there and took a bus and a shuttle to the airport. It was looking like we were going to be delayed, because there was a storm going on. But, we made it home.