Washington DC

A couple weeks after coming back from India, my dad and I left for DC. Now this trip was different than most others I had been on because it was just my dad and me. He was actually going to be dropping me off at my NYT program at Fordham University but since my 8th grade DC trip had been cancelled because of COVID, he decided to take me there before going to New York. We caught an early morning flight from SFO and arrived in DC by around 5pm.

I convinced my dad to let us take the metro instead of a taxi to the hotel because it would be much more fun, and it definitely was. We had to walk from the station to our hotel, and I never thought any place in the US would be hotter than California but yet DC was. After sweating our way to the hotel and unpacking, we decided to quickly visit a few places before it got dark out since we would only be there for another day before driving up to New York.

First, we walked over to the White House since it was literally right in front of our hotel. After walking through the crowd slowly, we finally got to take pictures in front of the house, and then crossed the street to look at more statues in Lafayette Park. We also got to see a Palestine sit-in protest in front of the park which was cool to see.

Afterwards, we walked another mile down to see the Washington Monument. Because of the excessive heat, we weren't allowed to go inside (which just seems contradictory to me), so we just took pictures outside and then relaxed in the park for a little while because of how hot it was.

At this point, it was already around 8:30, but we still had a couple more things to see before we headed back. We walked over to the nearby World War II Memorial, which also gave us a really good view of the Washington Monument from a man made lake separating the two. Lastly, we wanted to go to the Lincoln Memorial but because it was already late and we were tired from walking everywhere, instead of giving up and heading back, we rented two scooters and quickly went to the memorial. In DC, scooters were literally everywhere and everyone was taking them to go around to different places instead of walking. Once we reached the memorial and walked all the way to the top, we took a couple pictures but quickly ran out of there because the heat and stuffiness in the place was just too much. However from the top we were able to take a few good pictures of the entire Washington Monument and the reflecting pool.

Because of a lack of scooters available in the night, we tiredly walked back to our hotel at around 10pm, eventually finding two scooters and riding them back quickly.

The next day, we woke up around 9am, ate breakfast, and then walked over to the Smithsonian National Archives. We got to see the original Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, and the Constitution among a variety of other famous letters and charters written by kings and presidents.

While we tried to walk between the different Smithsonian museums, the weather was just getting so hot that we tried for the closest one to us, the Air and Space Museum. There was a ticket requirement for it though, so after standing in the shade for a little while, we continued our walk throughout the mall, ending up at the Capitol.

It was free to enter the Capitol, and we were even able to get tickets to get a tour of the entire building. On the tour, they showed the rotunda, the various statues given by different states and organizations, paintings depicting America's history, and even Mike Johnson's office (only from the outside though).

After finishing the tour, we got lunch at the restaurant there and tried to enjoy the AC as much as we could before leaving.

Since we were leaving on Saturday, instead of first going back to the hotel, we took a cab to the car rental, got our car, and then drove to the hotel to quickly put our suitcases in and leave. Because we were driving all the way to Jersey to stay at a friend's house overnight, we had to leave around 3pm since we also wanted to stop at Mt. Vernon first.

When we arrived at Vernon, we hiked up to see the actual house and then got a tour of all the rooms. While the place looked huge from the outside, the rooms on the inside were so small, but it was interesting to see how there were artifacts still kept that actually did belong to Washington at one point. After the tour, we walked around outside and got to see all the other buildings Washington had as a part of his estate. We also saw his resting place and visited a slave memorial afterwards for all those that worked on the property.

Once we had tired ourselves out (around 6pm), we began our drive up to Jersey, seeing Maryland, Delaware, and eating dinner in Philly before getting to my dad's friend's house and crashing there for the night.