Hope, Here and Now, and Ford's Theater

 

We visited the Hope diamond, very impressive. Sylvia even got ear rings with small replicas of the Hope diamond so she can be all stylish.

 

 

We did so much walking which was partly fun and exciting, partly just totally exhausting. The nice thing was finding interesting sites like the Ford's Theater, where Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.

 

And we found Jane's Favorite Store!

 

One of Our Spies...

 

So Much To See!

 

I remember being here with my kids a few years ago. So cool we visited again!

 

The buildings still were amazing, I love the feeling of history that was surrounding us everywhere. Looking up and seeing buildings like this everywhere.

 

Did I mention the cool lanterns?

 

My kids provided the obligatory silliness, since what is vacation without being silly? Also someone wasn't feeling super well, so managed to convince her siblings to carry her.

 

Notice the Washington Memorial in the background. Sadly we weren't able to visit it since it was still closed since the earth quake a while ago.

 

It still amazes me how this now is part of my adopted country. It seems only four years ago that I was European! And now this is my country and we are blessed to be able to visit its capital. Of course, that is the sappy version, the reality was filled with a lot of 'My feet are hurting!' 'When will we have lunch?' 'Are we going to the hotel yet?!'

 

Bodyless heads in random locations...

 

 

The Museum of Natural History had a cool exposition on the oceans. Sylvia and I spent some time watching a movie which took us to the bottom of the oceans. The twilight zone, the dark zone with lots of luminiscent creatures and the mysteries of the stunning ocean floor. Now I wonder whether I should have become a oceanologist after all, like I briefly considered when I was a teenager.

 

A giant squid.

 

And let's hope that Sylvia will never meet a real life white shark...

 

Anyway good times were had by all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The National Zoo!

 

When we arrived in Washington DC, our first outing was to the National Zoo.

 

It was cold and rainy and we had limited time, but it was still nice to see some of the animals.

 

We loved to travel all this distance and to see deer... Just like our backyard.

 

And ducks. Just like our rivers...

 

Luckily they had some more impressive ducks than the boring mallards. Talking about birds, when driving through New Jersey, we were amazed at the number of geese we saw there. Now I know where our geese go during the winter! All off to the Jersey Shore!

 

And once we were close to DC we almost got hit by a suicidal raptor, I think a falcon or a hawk, it was too fast to figure out details. It decided to cross the road, only barely missing our wind shield. Very cool to see it up close, but happy it missed us.

 

In the zoo we liked the indoors exhibits especially the ones with tropical birds.

 

Some of the birds were REALLY LOUD.

 

And some were hard to find.

 

I love the more colourful ducks, very pretty.

 

This was an outdoors bird exhibit.

 

Pretty birds

 

including a peacock guarding his harem.

 

 

 

 

Highlight of the day was the giant pandas. First we were disappointed it was too cold for them to be inside and we thought we were out of luck. But then we discovered the indoors exhibit, yay!

 

One was sleeping...

 

Adorable and cuddly! (Yes, i know they have claws and teeth and are wild animals but this still looked very cute!)