To pick back up where I left off: Monday we packed our first day in the city not arriving home to our cottage until about 6:30 in the evening. We had our first experience with the metro which is what we used for transportation all week. It worked pretty slick once we got the hang of it... the first ride was slightly unnerving with the doors closing automatically and seven of us to hop on and off before they do so. But we successfully stayed as a group of seven each ride throughout the whole week, thank goodness!
not all rides were this empty!! In fact, we found this was really rare and some of our rides found us standing in the middle...
To begin our week in the city, we bought Old Town Trolley tickets for Monday. The tour gave us a lovely glimpse of all the highlights of the city and helped us map things out a little bit. There were a few places that we actually got off the trolley and toured, but then when we were ready, we hopped back on :). The following pictures are ones Mom captured from the trolley...
the Supreme Court building
the Thomas Jefferson Memorial
the Washington Monument
the Lincoln Memorial
We spent a couple hours Monday afternoon touring Arlington Cemetery and witnessing the changing of the guard ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier - twice, actually :). It was a beautiful day!
the rows and rows and acres upon acres of tombstones are almost incomprehensible...
We were amazed at the formality and rigidness of the ceremony... there was no breaking the rules, that's for sure!
a beautiful amphitheater at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
Can you believe they still have an average of about 30 burials a day in Arlington Cemetery?? I believe there may have been a burial of an officer or someone important the day we were there.
We found a tombstone with the name Leman! Not sure who it was since the grass was roped off to go see the front... but, it was a Leman nonetheless :).
John F. Kennedy's grave and his family's with the eternal flame (which you can't really see :)).
After we were finished at Arlington, we hopped back on the Old Town Trolley and spent some time visiting the Lincoln Memorial and the different war memorials.
I've seen lots of pictures of the Lincoln memorial, but actually being there made me realize how big it is. It is huge! All of the buildings are big and majestic here in DC. And as you can see, we weren't the only ones there visiting... can't imagine what it's like in summer since October is supposedly off season!
We weren't able to go up the Washington Monument since it recently closed due to elevator issues. Our hilariously dramatic tour guide on the trolley told us that a few weeks ago, tourists "went up, up, up, up, up and they were stuck, stuck, stuck, stuck, stuck" :)
the Gettysburg Address
the Vietnam wall.... the rows and rows and rows of names was extremely sobering and completely blows my mind.
Pretty much how we all felt when we took one last ride on the trolley back to the metro station!
that my friends, is the Old Town Trolley :) (Union Station in the background). It was a great way to spend the first day and get a feel of the city!!
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| if you strain those eyes, you can see the Capitol building in there, too! We arrived home in just enough time to make and enjoy supper together and then a few hours of homework, dutch blitz and a chopped episode :). It was an awesome day and we crashed looking forward to a tour of the Capitol building Tuesday morning. Stay tuned! -faith |
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