memorials to everone & everything!

After we had found a park (a good one if I may say so myself) the day started of by walking down to Jefferson memorial because it was the closest. The memorial is kind of like a stage with stairs facing the river. Then on top of that stage was a circle of old fashioned pillars, with a domed roof. It had 4 walls and in-between them 4/5 gaps.

In the middle of the “stage” there was this massive statue of Thomas Jefferson himself.

On the 4 walls it had quotes of Thomas’s

The building was made of marble.

Our next stop was (walking) to the Washington monument. This one was like the Bunker Hill monument but much bigger and the tallest building in town! The monument is also the tallest masonry structure in the world. And for those of you who don’t know what that means, a masonry structure is a construction that stops its bricks from sliding only by gravity – no steel or concrete reinforcing.

We couldn’t be bothered climbing all those 895 steps to the top so when we found out they had an elevator, and that it was free, we thought 'what the hey' so we went through security to the elevator where we went up 555 feet in 70 seconds. When it was first completed (taking almost 40 years in total!) the monument had a steam powered elevator that took 10-25 minutes to get to the top. The view from the top was amazing – you could see all the major things in Washington e.g. the reflection pool, the white house, the state house, and the Jefferson memorial, even though it was a little foggy.

The next stop was WWII memorial followed by a walk down the reflection pool to the Lincoln memorial. I’m sure you guys know who he is but even so… he was the President during the civil war. This Lincoln memorial is pretty similar to the Jefferson, but the stairs faced the pool and the pillars in a row at the front. And it had 3 walls like a house. On one side wall is a copy fo the Gettysburg address, on the other is his 2nd inauguration speach. And right in the back middle is a huge marble statue on Lincoln sitting down on a marble chair. The WWII memorial has amazing fountains and is large & impressive... and some Japanese wanted their photo taken with us.

We sat down at the foot of the memorial and had lunch. Next was Vietnam War memorial which is a big black wall with names of the soldiers who died in the war - it looked like a sea of names there were just so many of them!

The last stop for the day was crossing the massive bridge to the Arlington cemetery. We went into the visitors center and bought tickets for a shuttle tour around the rows of gravestones - the cemetry covers more than 600 acres and has row upon row of white gravestones as far as sht eye can see. This was a hop on hop of bus tour. The first stop was at President John. F. Kennedy‘s grave. Did you know the thing that made him so famous was because he got assassinated (& he was also the youngest president)? His grave has a everlasting flame, see if you can spot General Lee's house in the corner of the photo.

The next stop was at the tomb of unknown soldiers. Here they have a guard on 24/7 all days of the year. Each guard has to pace 21 steps, wait 21 seconds then do a sequence with his gun, wait 21 seconds and repeat. When we were just in time to see to change of he guards. The boss soldier dude told us to be silent and to stand up which is to show respect. The leader checked the new guard’s gun then he and the new guard fell into step with the former guard who was still pacing then got the two to stop and repeat their instructions to the guards.

By then a whole heap of other guards had started appearing and we found out that the prime minister of Turkey would hang a wreath on the tomb of unknown soldiers. So we hung around and when the procession started we were ready. It started of with 5 groups of soldiers coming up, representing all the different armed forces. One group had a girl for their leader. And one group looked so young, like little boys. Then the flag bearers came in and did this cool thing while they were still in a perfect line they turned in a circle. Then the band played... and all so the president could just hold the wreath. We were really lucky to arrive on that day because there was certainly a lot of fuss and ceremony, far more than the usual 3 miserable soldiers involved in changing of the guard each hour.

When all that had finished we hopped back onto the bus and went to visit General Lee’s house! Did you know that he was a as a punishment they buried the dead soldiers in his back yard – literally! His house is just a museum now. [ed... interestingly, Lee had been with the US Army for 32 years prior to the outbreak of the Civil War. After it started he took 8 days do decide which side to fight for - one of his sons actually ended up fighting got he Yankees. They decided to bury union soldiers in front of his house as poetic justice, from which point onwards it became the national cemetry. In fact, the Lee's ended up suing the govt and got $150k for the loss of Arlington House]

It was still daylight so we wandered down past the Pentagon. It is one massive building & we got to see the 9/11 memorial there as well. To get home we caught the subway because the nearby bridge was vehicles only. We managed to find a sideroad with metered parking not far from town so, along with free daytime parking just near the Jefferson, not to mention free entry to pretty much everything, I think Washington will be one cheap place to stay!

Love (as always)... from Amy