Day 41 & 42 (8th/9th of September) – Washington D.C – Breakfast with the President, Dinner with the Redskins

After our big night at the comedy festival we were up early the next morning to get our bus to Washington D.C. We decided to split up our 10 nights in New York with a couple of days in the National’s Capital. The bus was comfortable, reasonable priced and easy. We left New York at 1000 and arrived in D.C at 1430. Eddie had booked us into the Hilton Hotel for the next couple of nights, which he assured us he got for a ‘steal’. We were located in close proximity to a subway station, restaurants and the President, so we were all happy with that. We had a quiet night because we knew tomorrow was going to be a huge day of sightseeing and football, we managed to get tickets to see the local American football team the Washington Redskins play, which we were all very excited about.

Day 42 was a huge day of sightseeing. We started the day like most others with a coffee and some breakfast. However, today’s breakfast was consumed in the foregrounds of the White House!

1600 Pennsylvania Ave Washington D.C

Breakfast with Barack 

After consuming our morning meal, we are going to say ‘with the president’ we started our walk around the monuments of Washington DC.

Unfortunately the Washington Monument was under repair

WW2 Memorial

Reflective pool and the Abraham Lincoln Memorial

M&J on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial

Mitch and Eddie regrouping with Lincoln

Mitch and Jo hanging with Lincoln. What is on Jo's shirt you say..... It's Lincoln stroking a cat of course.

Lincoln - attempted to end slavery for the sake of unity. Ironically, in his will, he only freed 5 of his 165 slaves when he died.

Reflective pool and monument (under construction)

Albert Einstein 

Roosevelt and Mitch

Thomas Jefferson memorial

Thomas Jefferson (Principal author of the declaration of independence)

Hard to tell in this picture, but we were lucky enough to see the president drive past with 20 police cars on his way to the Capitol Building

After checking out all the monuments we headed to the Holocaust Museum and the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History. The Holocaust museum was very confronting and emotional, comparable to our experience we had at the museum in Hiroshima, Japan. The American History museum was very interesting lots of info on the American Revolution, the American Civil War and the Presidents through time, which was good considering all the monuments we had just been to. We had one last stop at Capitol Hill before heading home to regroup before the football.

Holocaust Museum 

National Museum of American History

Smithsonian's castle

Washington Capitol Building

Mitch and Jo at the Capitol building

We got the subway to FedEx Field, which is were the mighty Washington Redskins were to take on there bitter rivals the Philadelphia Eagles. The stadium was a fair distance from the city, this is by design though, a large part of American Football is the pregame ritual of ‘Tailgating’. This is where in the enormous car parks surrounding the stadium, everyone brings there BBQ’s and coolers (Esky’s) and cook up and devour exuberant amounts of meat and wash them down with beer, all along with getting dressed up, painting faces and yelling banter at the rival team supporters. Our precession from the subway to the ground through this ritual was worth the price of admission, a great experience!!

Once inside the ground with 85 000 other spectators we found our seats in the ‘upper’ grandstand just in time for the pre game hype. The Washington Redskins marching band banged, tooted and crashed their way around the ground in perfect formation before the Ladies of the Redskins shook the pom poms like no one was watching. We then stood at attention for the team’s arrival to the field and the national anthem.

A little bit of fireworks

Go Skins! Marching band

As far as we know about American Football (which is basically nothing) the Redskins played terribly in the first half, which although was only 30 minutes of playing time took about 120 minutes! It was crazy the players stood on the field and waited while the broadcasting company televised adds. The second half was more promising for the home team but they still didn’t do enough to get the win, losing by 6 points.

Go the Redskins!!

Redskins losing!

 Yes, it was just like the American football movies.

Just to let everyone know, we figured out how to change the settings on the blog so everyone can comment. Comment away! 

Go Redskins!!!!

Mitch & Jo

xoxo