Welcome To DC!
When the alarm chimed (beeped at a decibel level that was totally unacceptable for that time of the morning!) at 4:30am it was so hard to get up! None of us leapt out of bed enthusiastically that’s for sure We’d only left ourselves fifteen minutes to get ready and be out the door and in hindsight, that was really not enough! The whole Shorney family except James (who was sensible and kept sleeping), and including Sydney the dog, got up to farewell us. The morning took a bit of a downward turn when Toby announced that he couldn’t find his brand new iPod Touch!!! Oh no! We ran through all the mandatory questions like “when did you last have it?”, “have you checked your pockets?” “did you drop it down a drain?”…etc. Sam said he knew Toby hadn’t used it in the last day or so because he’d noticed Toby had been joining in on the conversations again! Still, it was nowhere to be found. We were fairly confident it was in the house somewhere though so Lisa and Steve said they’d keep looking for us. Poor Tobes was a bit distraught.
It was a quick cab ride in to the airport and none of us were properly awake until well and truly after we’d checked in. Ross grabbed a Chicago tee shirt to add to his collection and we boarded our flight. We arrived in Washington DC around 9 o’clock Chicago time but we lost an hour because of the time difference here. We were all pretty knackered so we decided to have a little nanna nap.
After our batteries were recharged, we took the Hop-On-Hop-Off open top bus all around the city to see all the sights of the nation’s capital. It was great! There are so many beautiful and historic buildings here (all white and columned and various shapes and sizes) and such a plethora of museums, memorials and things to visit, we don’t really know where to start. There was a pre-recorded commentary on the bus that kept us informed of what we were ‘now passing’. It was all very serious until the voice over said “whilst onboard the bus, please refrain from smoking, eating, drinking alcohol and performing experimental surgery on the other passengers”. As the kids would say: how random!! It was hilarious! We stayed on for the whole loop and there was not another bit of humour at all! The tour was a good overview and we’ll start some more serious sight-seeing tomorrow. The kids are big fans of National Treasure so it’ll be fun going to all the places we’ve seen in the movie.
Just about every shop, restaurant, cafe or store you walk into in America is a chain. Sometimes it’s a really unique looking little place; a bit quirky and unusual and we think, “wow, this is a really great little find! “ We are stoked that we’ve stumbled on one of America’s best-kept secrets. So it’s always a little disappointing to find out that it’s not unique at all and there are seven hundred of them all over America that are totally identical! We had lunch in a place just like that today. It said on the window that it had been voted “Washington DC’s best sandwich shop” and you had to walk down some stairs to get to it so it was kind of hidden. Ross was quite proud of himself for discovering this great little spot. There was a guy playing guitar and singing inside and the place had really delicious food and a great vibe. It was only when I read the serviette that I realised that there were 200 of these places right across the continent! Oh well. We’re still searching for that one-off!
We had a very welcome call from Lisa too, to say that she’d found Toby’s iPod! PHEW!! It was up in the attic, next to the Jack-O-Lantern. Who could have guessed? Now we just have to work out how to get it back!
