Discovering The Capital-Washington D.C.

April 26/27-2008

Today I started early. My way took me to Washington D.C., the capital of the US.
After 3h drive I arrived there and looked for a cheap parking space but didn’t find anything. That’s why I had to go to a big parking lot. The prices were hmm, but what should I do...
And it was very very hot. I think we had more than 30°C...and I forgot the sunblocker. I already could feel the upcoming sunburn...:-)
Then I checked in in the hostel and afterwards wanted to find a parking space on the street cause they are free on weekends. But when I arrived at the parking lot I saw that I watched the wrong prices before. Saturdays it’s only $5. I thought that’s really okay for being directly in the city centre.
So I started my sightseeing trip. At first I wanted to see the White House and after a short walk I was there. Unfortunately I couldn’t go inside but even the view from outside was very nice. And on the Lafayette square which is in front of the White House they played roll-hockey and things. It was really funny.

I walked on, passing the residence of Eisenhower a very lot of souvenir stands to the National Mall. It’s a big park which leads through the heart of D.C.. You can see there different important monuments etc.It' very interesting!
Because of the nice weather everything was very crowded. There were a lot of families strolling around, on the lawn there was a kickball-turnament. I didn’t know that game before but watched it a bit and for me seemed a lot like dodgeball (Völkerball).Anyway, it was interesting but too hot in the sun to spend there a long time.

And at the end there ist the capitol. I walked on with the goal to reach the capitol but it took me some time. I did make a stop at a nice bassin where you can rent some paddleboats or just relax. I sat in the sun for a while, viewed the ducks and the people and just enjoyed the wonderful weather.

But then I walked on and after anothr while I finally stood in front of the capital. I love that building, I think it’s so beautiful!!
After admiring this building a while I decided to go to the center and look for some shops with air conditioning because I really felt a bit dizzy and not so well anymore. So I shopped some postcards and went to the Macy’s store but unfortunately they didn’t have anything I liked.
After seeing all the other important things of Washington it was a few minutes to five and I wondered what to do now. I felt that I had a huge sunburn and a sunstroke, my head was aching and so I decided to head back to Reading and use the Sunday to recover. I did that and it was the absolutely wright decision.
After a short detour (of course not wanted) to the suburbs of Baltimore because I took the wrong highway direction I made my way back home. There I felt a little bit hungry and decided to buy a sandwich. So I went to Subway, bought the sandwich and met a guy called John. We had a nice talk☺

I spent Sunday with sleeping long, cleaning up my room and ironing. Unfortunately I ironed myself instead of my shirt...:-) It did hurt very much...:-((
But everything is okay again and I enjoyed that relaxing Sunday. In the evening I felt really well again and therefore I decided to go in the park for running a bit. I wasn’t there the whole last week and it was so nice. All the goose have their kids now and the spring flowers are in flower now. It was beautiful!!