resmarie

Since we fell asleep early it felt OK to get up before 7, after all, time was close to 1 PM at home. Arvid didn’t quite agree, he had been training at home through late nights, but he got up. We went to Subway to get some kind of decent breakfast, and with help from a map from the hotel we managed to find the metro station.

Confusion in the parking garage, why do we not check in or pay? Nothing to put behind the windscreen? No, everything will be paid when you leave, nobody cares how long you will be staying.

Confusion by the ticket machine, how do we get a ticket? The kind staff helped us, we bought two farecards and filled them with 25 dollars each.

The train took about 45 min and we got off on the Smithsonian, didn’t find our way and walked around the impressive department of agriculture.

We started with the Natural History Museum. It is a fantastic museum, beautifully arranged, interesting facts and various fields. We managed to see two IMAX films, Mysteries of the unseen world and Dinosaurs Alive. I planned to sleep during the dinosaurs, I think I have seen enough of them after two boys, but the film was actually capturing and I was awake the whole time. For more information about the IMAX, see www.si.edu/imax. For information about the museum see www.nmnh.si.edu.

We went around all of the museum and stared fascinated at the lady who had various jars with her and gave around a cockroach for kids and parents to hold and look at. The green caterpillar that came next clung to her hand. Eventually we got tired and finished our visit by eating in the basement, not the best place but quite all right and well needed to keep the energy up.

We walked towards the White House but had to wait for a Chinese demonstration with people in yellow t-shirts telling us to fight the Chinese communist party. The white house was unbelievably small but lots of people had come to look at it. We took pictures and then decided it was time to take the train back “home”.

Back in the car we decided that we could not return to the hotel, then we would fall asleep immediately. A brochure said something about Waterloo Premium outlet in Leesburg and I knew I had seen the name Leesburg when we were trying to go somewhere else. So we went to Leesburg and there was, as always in the US, signs to follow and we had no problem finding the outlet with about 100 different shops. After coffee and a few hours at the outlet Arvid had bought a new jacket and I found a pair of jeans. Information www.premiumoutlets.com.

We also managed to find our way home. However, there would be nothing to eat waiting for us and it would be nice to have at least some fruit. So we went to Walmart close to our hotel and did some shopping.

No problem falling asleep after more than 12 hours “holiday”.