Washing My Ton

So Lesley and I have been in Washington DC for a few days. We arrived late on Monday night. Our shuttle driver didn't know Washington very well, so by the end of the trip we knew Washington very well.

We're staying in a Youth Hostel here. It's fine. Everyone goes to bed early it seems. Especially in my room. And no one talks to each other much. Although right now in the lounge there's a guy from Australia telling an American guy about our water restrictions and Greek residents. That's ambassadorship if ever I heard it.

The first day we were rather stuffed, went straight to Capitol Hill for a tour of the Captiol building but were foiled by our lostness. So we just headed on down to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.

If I had to be locked in one museum for the rest of my life, that'd be pretty high on my shortlist. It was amazing! Full of planes, space ships, ballistic missiles and films about all of the above. I has so happy in there. I geeked out. It's not quite as cool as the wing walk tour at Longreach, but if I was locked in there for the rest my life I'd walk on all the wings. Perhaps they need a Chaplin or resident usher or something. I love planes.

We watched an Imax movie there called Fighter Pilot: Operation Red Flag which was about a big training mission. It had lots of cool military stuff and it was wonderfully shot. I spent most of the time trying to work out how they shot it. I was impressed and pleased.

In addition to being an amazingly cool museum, it also had the biggest Maccas I've ever seen. So if I lived there I would be fat and happy. What else could I want?

Last night we had salad for dinner.

Today was White House day! We wandered over after a late sleep in and Chinese for breakfast. It was special. Seeing the White House was like being in a dream. I've seen it so many times in movies, and then I saw it for real. But it was in the wrong place. Like how you can dream your in England and then walk into your home, that's was it was like finding the White House but it wasn't in the movies (or The West Wing). But I got my photo taken in front of it, so now I inhabit the same universe as Jed Bartlet. My life is good.

While we were trying to get to the front of the White House we noticed there was a lot of security around and a lot of Police not letting you walk places you wanted to go. We heard one lady comment that you couldn't go anyway becaues "Obama is arriving soon". That sounded fun. When we finally made it to the front (or perhaps back) of the White House we found ourselves on the other side of the road from the fence, with the Police not letting anyone across the road. Eventually we saw all the traffic on the otherside of the park facing the White House get stopped, we heard sirens. We went across to the corner where the police seemed to keeping things clear and sure enough in a few minutes, along came some police motor bikes, an SUV, then a limo, followed by a limo, followed by three SUV chase cars and a police car. Or something like that.

In both limos there were someone sitting in the back seat waving at us. One of the was Obama, I guess the other one was his decoy waver. Either way, Obama waved at me.

I love motorcades. It made me pretty pleased. This town rocks.

We went to the White House Visitor Centre which wasn't nearly as impressive as the White House gift store down the road.

We then wandered down to the National Museum of American History. It was full of American stuff, I'm not sure I learnt a lot, but it was full of good exhibits, and I saw Oscar the Grouch and Dorothy's ruby slippers. They're not really rubies, just sequins.

Tonight was Transformers night. I'll blog about the film later. It was on at cinemas right next to the Verizon Centre where Beyonce was playing tonight. As we walked through the crowd after buying tickets to the movie I had the urge to check tickets and usher people inside. I didn't however, I just went to Starbucks.

Now I'm ready for bed. The clothes have been washed. Tomorrow is Capitol attempt too! Woo!