Washington D. C.

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On September, 9th I travelled to Washington D. C. - my first time in the United States of America! I was really excited, not only because of the city, but also because I would meet two dear friends from home, Jeni and Karsten, there.

I took a Porter flight from the Billy Bishop City Airport starting from one of the islands in the Lake Ontario in Toronto. The airplane was pretty small and very loud on the inside, but quiet from the outside as there are only special airplanes allowed on the City Airport. There were only two seats on each side, separated by a walkway so narrow I’ve never seen it before. But the more often I fly alone, the more I feel safe with it. Taking a bus would have taken me about 20 hours per route, the flight only 1,5 hours.

Washington is a very impressive and pleasant city, it’s clean, neat and gives you an unexpected feeling of safety which may be deceptive.

The city is full of monuments, which are really nicely designed: Lincoln Memorial, Washington Memorial, Martin Luther King jr. Memorial, Roosevelt Memorial, Korean War Memorial, Vietnam War Memorial, World War II Memorial, … It’s definitely worth seeing them, even for people like me who are usually not so deep into history and culture. The first evening I joined a 3-hour City Tour by Night (by Signature Tours) stopping at almost all the memorials. The guide did a really great job!

Besides the Memorials, there is the “Smithsonian” complex with many Museums: Air and Space Museum, Museum of American History, Museum of African American History, Museum of Natural History, National Gallery of Art, National Museum of the American Indian, …. They are all for free which is a really great thing! In the morning of day 2 I went to the Air & Space Museum and to the Museum of American History. In the first one I watched a show in the planetarium ($ 5) as I’ve always loved planetariums <3. After that I met my friends and spent a very nice day with them. As the weather was hot and sunny, we spent most of the day outside, visiting the memorials in daylight and having a nice evening in a restaurant in the Adams’s Morgan neighbourhood, close to our hostel.

Jeni and Karsten chose a very great hostel as our accommodation called “Adam’s Inn”, it’s only a 15 min walk to the next metro station and a 10 minute ride to the city center. It’s located in a beautiful old town house and in a nice, culturally diverse neighbourhood in Northwest Washington , D. C., where you can find many bars and restaurants. The hostel is very unique, has pretty bedrooms with vintage furniture and air conditioning. You can choose between bedrooms with an own bathroom or ones with a shared bathroom on the hallway. We chose the cheaper option with a shared bathroom and were totally pleased with it; it was clean and we never had to wait. The first night I had a one-person bedroom as my friends arrived one day later and had to pay US$ 84, the second night I shared a bedroom with them (US$ 34/ person), a really good breakfast was included.

Thank you for a wonderful weekend with you, Jeni and Karsten! <3

#washington #trip #usa