Memories from visit to Washington, DC

Never had intentions to visit America, in the near future anyway, but as things turn out, i got a chance to visit the capitol, Washington in District of Columbia.


I spent 3 weeks there staying first at the city's international youth hostel then moving to a student hostel in the colourful suburb of Adam's Morgan.
The fall season was great time to be in Georgetown and the colours and the townhouse layout was quite charming. It was also Halloween time and pumpkins and holloween decorations were on display around most houses.

A park called Rock Creek and walkway by Georgetown leads to the washington harbour. The Kennedy centre is located nearby which offers free entertainment events every weeknight. I went there with a fellow hosteller and enjoyed a picallo concert, dinner and fantastic views of the city and harbour at night.



In a weekend of good weather i paid a visit to the Arlington National Cemetery wherein lies the famous grave site of former President JF Kennedy.

It was certainly a neat and impressive cemetery and offered great panoramic views of the city from its heights.

One highlight of my visit was the an exhibition held at the recently opened Smithsonian National Meusuem of the Native American, located at the Capitol Hill end of the Mall. On exhibit were some beautiful marble and rock carvings/depiction of Native American people. This meuseum also had the most interesting architechture.

Its fantastic that the meuseums are free to visit. Other Smithsonian meusuems i briefly visited were the meuseum of natural history, American history meuseum and the air and space meuseum. Also visited the National Geographic meuseum which was relatively smaller but no less interesting. There are also many free to enter art galleries which I'd love to visit on a future trip to the city.

White house viewed from a distance:


Most monuments were impressive and gave that larger-than-life-feeling.


Once again I met some great people and it was a great experiance
Picture courtsey of Yukio Takaoka

Other impressions from the visit:
I found the people open and human. Surprisingly and sadly found many people were homeless.
Things are not as commercialised as i expected. Tourism's not as big an industry as it is here is Aus or NZ.
Good underground Metro train system and fairly good on road public transport.
Significan local/international events that occured during my stay:
American elections with George Bush re-elected as President.
The passing away of Palastine president Yasa Arafat.
Total eclipse of the full moon which i witnessed partly.