Washington DC, USA

I'm kind of doing this blog backwards, because I'm already home! Anyway it was an interesting time to be in DC, with Congress turning to the Democrats in a pretty big way! Weather was pretty crappy on the few spare days I had, but fine and sunny when we were indoors at the conference - of course!

Next stop off was the Einstein statue - stood in the centre of the universe and spoke to Albert.. it's prettier at night with the star map beautifully marked with reflective markers, but still gorgeous in the day time. The White House was under seige by journalists!


Next stop across the park was the Vietnam memorial.

I'd seen this before at night, and it's a very moving memorial. The wall starts low, representing the loss of life at the start of the Vietnam War, and grows chronologically as deaths increase. The names of all who died are inscribed on the wall.

Next shot is the Freedom Wall. This is located on the west side of the World War II memorial.The wall contains 4048 gold stars, one for every approximately 100 American deaths incurred in the war.
A part of the WWII memorial is next.



The memorial consists of 56 pillars, each a little more than 5 m high, arranged in a semicircle around a central plaza with two 13 m arches on opposite sides. Each pillar is inscribed with the names of the then-48 US States, the District of Colombia, and the Alaska Territory. The Territory of Hawaii, the Phillippines, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa and the US Virgin Islands. One arch is inscribed "Pacific" and the other "Atlantic".
Looking over the Rainbow and reflecting pools is the Lincoln Memorial, then looking down from the steps of the Lincoln memorial towards the Washington Monument. All very beauiful.

The site of the Martin Luther King memorial is also in this area, it'll be completed in thenext few years.

After wandering around all these monuments I headed off down the National Mall towards the Congress.