We started the day with the usual "bags out at 7am, get onto the coach by 8am" start and then we drove back to Washington with quick stops for morning tea and lunch.
Another tour guide then joined us and took us around Washington. Of course, in a few hours we only saw a tiny glimpse of the place - enough to convince me that I want to come back and spend a week here. At least. Just a few of the Smithsonian Museums could keep me going for that long, let alone all the other museums and displays.
First stop was at the National Cemetery at Arlington. The tour guide showed us the graves of the Kennedy brothers and also gave us a lot of interesting information about how you get to be eligible to be buried at Arlington (or one of the other 100-odd National Cemeteries). He said that because of the age of WW2 and other veterans, they have upwards of 20 funerals there every day. We saw a lot of men in uniform - on closer glance an honour guard from fire service at Washington airport and also a number of other emergency services agencies, so we presume it was a funeral for someone senior in that area.
This was a very moving place, but not a place I want to come to again.
Next stop was to see the Korean War, Vietnam War, and Lincoln memorials.
The Korea memorial consists of a field with 19 statues (that they say are made of stainless steel) representing all the major arms of the services that were involved. There's also a long wall with etchings of more of the people involved, and another low wall showing the names of all the countries involved in the action in Korea.
I don't really know what to say about this one - it's very nicely done, but to me it felt a little like they had tried so hard to be fair and inclusive that they hadn't really gotten the point across. Maybe I'm being unfair but I just couldn't see it.
The Vietnam Memorial was originally a long wall showing - in chronological order - the names of every US serviceman killed in Vietnam. Since then, they have added two further sets of statues - three men to represent the services involved, and then later they added a montage commemorating the involvement of women in the war. I'll be very happy to see the day when women are treated fairly enough in everyday life, everywhere, that no-one feels it necessary to do "special" memorials to the involvement of women. Anyway, that's off my chest, but I'm about to be non-PC again about the memorial itself - I'm sure it's meaningful to the people involved - which I guess is all that matters - but to me it was just a list of names that didn't really manage to make the point it was trying to make.
It's possible that I wasn't really in the mood for seeing memorials.
Next stop of course was the Lincoln Memorial. I understand now just how significant Lincoln is to Americans - far more than I thought or understood before this tour started. And, they explained all the symbolism to us - eg, one column for each state in the Union at the end of the Civil War. However, like much else about the USA, I found it to be huge and overdone - to me, the same thing but 10% of the size would have been just as impressive and meaningful, and nowhere near as grandiose.
The next thing I'm going to mention is the Washington Monument - of course we saw it many times during the day as it's so huge, but this is a view from near the Lincoln Memorial. What you can see just in the foreground is meant to be a renovated Reflecting Pool, but soon after they re-filled it, it got an algae problem, so they're currently cleaning it out.
We couldn't actually go into the Monument - no-one can. It was damaged in an earthquake last year and further damaged by a hurricane at much the same time and it will be at least 2 years before it can be fixed. In the meantime no-one is allowed in there.
Just a little side point here - although the tour guide didn't mention it, this memorial statue has a (tenuous) link to Australia. It's the memorial to Tadeusz Kosciuszko - a hero of the US because of his involvement in the War of Independence and he is the Kosciuszko that Australia's highest mountain is named after.
Next stop was to have a look at this pretty little vegetable patch:
in the yard of this house:
Final stop for the afternoon was a photo op at the Capitol - this nice shot that Paul took showing most of the Ulysses S Grant memorial.
After this, we went back to the hotel in Alexandria - the same one where we started the tour - and had a quick shower to get ready for the evening's entertainment. First stop was pre-organised dinner which I have to say I was less than impressed with. The food was fine - excellent in fact (except for the dessert - Key Lime Pie which to me tasted like a second rate cheesecake). The organisation was not so good, starting with an inappropriate table setup that left one couple on their own at what was supposed to be a farewell dinner for the group. We sorted that out by getting the restaurant to reorganise the tables, but the dinner also ended with a rush - people were still eating dessert and drinking their coffee and all of a sudden we were being rushed out the door.
The night finished with an "Illuminations" tour - a nighttime tour of some more memorials. All the events / people being commemorated have every right to be commemorated, so let's just leave it at this:
Iwo Jima and Kennedy Memorials - nicely done
Thomas Jefferson - makes the Lincoln Memorial look understated
We finally went home after this - it was probably the longest day on the tour.
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