Party in the USA

Good evening ladies and gentlemen....

I've left Belgium about a week ago, 3.30 p.m. on July 20th.
about 24 hours later me and my family were settled in Virginia, just outside Washington D.C., which means District of Columbia (not 'da capo').
Don't get this wrong: you have the District of Columbia (the state), which consists of Washington, the capital city, and then you have Washington (another state). Washington D.C. is NOT a part of the state Washington.
The first one is to be found on the east coast, the latter on the west coast.

Quite handy to know when you download the maps onto your gps.
We didn't at first and our gps went nuts.
But we got there.

Day 1 - Washington D.C.: the roadtrip.
Between 4 and 7.30 p.m. you can't park in most of the streets in Washington.

This is because the parking lane is then used as a regular driving lane. So we didn't, we drove around instead.




First cultural stop: the National Archives. Too bad for us, we arrived at closing time. Just to give you an idea on how big thing here usually are: the main door of the archives.
Pretty big, me thinks...

First actual stop: Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. (Quite a mouthful, don't you think?)
Also know as the museum from the 'night at the museum'-movies. Featuring in front of the elephant in the center of the museum is my 'little sister.





Extremely impressive: Arlington Cemetery. This includes not only miles and miles of military graves, but also the house of the stepson of the one and only chief himself: Washington.
One of the graves is the grave for the unknown soldiers. This on is guarded 24/7, every single day of the year, by the 3rd U.S. Infantry regiment. The changing of the guard happens every hour, every half hour during summer. The ritual that is use for the changing is an event on it's own. If you're ever there, be sure to watch it.
Also: this is where all the Kennedy's are burried.

We also went to visit the Museum for Indian-American History.  The top floor was quite interesting, the rest of them not so much. If you know that there are for floors... I guess you could say I wouldn't actually recommend it, but if it's in your field of interests go ahead.

Funny facts:
- everywhere you go you see chipmunks, squirrels and hundreds of little brown birds.
- Americans don't know 'small'. Building with 20 to 30 floors aren't unusual. Note: skyscrapers aren't allowed. Yeah, I guess when you compare with let's say New York, then Washington has no skyscrapers. At least not in the American sense of the word.
- Everywhere you look are threes and grass. Despite the huge building, there's way more nature in the city then there is to be found in Belgium.

That's it for today.
I'll keep you posted!

Love you guys!!!