Hello there.

This is just a short story from when I visited Washington D.C about a month ago. The place I live and work at is about 400km south from the capital. I knew from before that our beloved chat-girl Beth has a good friend working in Washington, so I kinda asked if she couldn't set us up since I was going her direction anyway. Well, it didn't take long before me and her started mailing and exchanging phone numbers. Guess Beth had done a great job telling her friend how nice I am. :o)

So I jumped in my car and went north on a friday afternoon. Cruising through the countryside and recognizing a whole bunch of names from the civil war era. I even drove past a place called Rawlings. I didn't stop...sorry Angel. ;o) I finally found my way to the right part of the city and we met up outside her apartment. We had a good time on friday night out on the town with her Finnish friends.

Went to a few places in the Georgetown university area. Then saturday was sightseeing day. Parked the car two blocks from the White House and started to warm up the camera I had bought. It's all very concentrated to a "small" area downtown where all the famous sights are. Fought my way through busloads of Japanese tourists to get a few shots of George W's little mansion. Then off to the place called "the Mall" where the Capitol building, the Washington monument and the Lincoln Memorial is situated. You probably recognize the Lincoln memorial on one of the pictures from the Forrest Gump movie? Forrest jumped in the Reflecting Pool to meet his girl.

Then we were off to Arlington Memorial, the famous military burying ground just outside the downtown area. It's a very nice and powerful place to see with all the white headstones lined up in perfect rows as long as the eye can see. It's really huge, trust me. And the weekend I visited was Memorial Day weekend. So the place was packed with people paying respect to their old ancestors buried there. And every headstone has an american flagg in front of it.

You really should spend days, and days in Washington to see it all and to take your time to get up close and personal. All the museums are around the Mall area as well, but we had no time to take a peek inside this time.

On sunday afternoon we went to see this huge parade of Vietnam veterans on motorcycles just a few blocks from the White House. It was a great day and people showed up in thousands and thousands. Rumor has it that 60-70000 bikes were in the parade and almost as many bikes stood by the everlasting main street of the parade cheering on their old war heroes. And about 250-300 thousand people stood along the streets. It was real cool...2 hours standing and listening to bikes thunder by..it was almost like a rock concert. :o)

Headed home to North Carolina sunday afternoon with a smile on my face. Special thanks to "Antsu"

Best wishes of a great festival.

Fredde

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