DC to NYC

20^th June Monday

Spying, Flying, and the Bill of Rights

Got up, had breakfast. At breakfast we met another guy from the UK who was on his way south to the places we’d just come from- Memphis, Austin, New Orleans. We gave him tips on what he definitely had to do (most of it was us babbling on about how awesome the jazz band was, and how he absolutely had to go see them). Our great advice didn’t go unrewarded though; he told us to make sure we went to the National Archives, which had been something we’d not even thought of doing- so we have him to thank for a pretty great afternoon.

We begun our tour of the city with a trip to the Spy Museum.

 It was actually a very fascinating place. We learnt that Daniel Defoe and Ian Flemming were both spies back in the day, and that Washington D.C. is the city with the highest spy population in the world. Naturally, for the whole rest of the day we were wandering around giving everyone we passed in the streets second glances, trying to discern whether or not they were part of some sort of espionage scheme. There was an exhibit on ninjas, and for all the history lovers out there, there were plenty of rooms dedicated to spying in all the world wars, and even some pretty awful facts about how Pearl Harbour could so easily have been prevented, if only some people would pay attention to what others told them. There were some old school gadgets: lip-stick pistol, microphone chips, umbrella guns, video camera sunglasses etc.

Two of the things we found most interesting were:
 1) the fact that the Navajo tribes (the Native American tribe we were telling you all about earlier) helped with the war effort in WWII by using a coded version of their language to baffle the Japanese. Their code was never once broken.
2) That cyber terrorism could result in a murderous society of complete anarchy. Basically we saw a timeline which went something like this:

1.       American banks are hacked into- all credit cards stop working, money quickly becomes useless. Communications fail across the nation.

2.       Electricity, gas, and clean water begin to run low, and disappear completely. People start tapping into underground gas pipes, stealing becomes common place, as does breaking and entering into houses.

3.       Hospitals unable to run- no sanitary equipment, drugs, or healthcare available.

4.       Food is in very short supply because of complete disruption throughout the country, as people get desperate for their lives, and the lives of their loved ones, they will turn to violence.

5.       Chaos ensues.

After we’d fully saturated our minds with fun spying facts, and decided that our childhood fantasies of being the next James Bond were even more ridiculous that we already imagined, we met up with one of Alice’s friends from her travels in Kenya earlier this year for lunch. Meeting up for lunch in Washington D.C . with a friend one has made in Kenya may seem a bit extreme, but the girl in question (her name is Nelle) actually works in Washington D.C., and is originally from Connecticut, so it did make sense- no one was flying half way across the world or anything crazy like that.

After a very pleasant sandwich lunch, Nelle had to go back to work, and the three of us, and Sas went to a frozen yoghurt shop (called Frozen Yo!) We absolutely stuffed ourselves- the yoghurt was so good, and as you can see from our photos below, there was a huge selection of toppings to be had as well! Yum!

(We passed the Capital Building)

Next on our list of museums to visit was the Air and Space Museum, which is the most visited museum in D.C. We all got our photos taken next to Apollo 11 (the one Neil Armstrong and his buddies Buzz Aldron, and the one no one can ever remember the name of, poor guy, travelled to and from the Moon in.) Then we wasted a perfectly good $7 on the most shockingly awful simulation ride any of us have ever been on, before spending $9 on an absolutely fantastic Planetarium show. We sat in very comfortable, tilted back chairs, under a high definition, domed screen, in a darkened room, listening to the soothing tones of Whoopi Goldberg’s commentary, as we zoomed through space. Yes, we did struggle to stay awake. It was completely mind-blowing, so the tendencies to fall asleep were certainly not because it was dull, but rather because all this travelling has exhausted us, and we’ve got used to napping every time we sit down for more than ten minutes.

We also visited the National Archives.

We had to queue for about an hour outside, and then get security checked, and then s tern talking to about no photos, and then queued some more inside. We saw a copy of the Magna Carter (which all the Americans were duly walking past and mostly ignoring), and then we attempted to read the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, and the American Constitution. We felt a little bit out of place considering 99% of the tourists her were Americans, and they were celebrating their independence from Britain. Oh well, as Alice said quite loudly ‘we didn’t want them anyway’, at which point the security guard in front of us started grinning conspiratorially at us- yes, someone who gets our humour!

Later that night we had our ‘last supper’ together as a tour group at a restaurant called Busboys and Poets. John felt sick so left as soon as his soup arrived. We all managed to get a table together, and we chatted, and laughed, and generally had a fab time.

Then we went to bed.

21^st June Tuesday

The Final Goodbye

The next day we passed through many states: Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and then ended in New York.

When the New York skyline first came into view, we whacked on: Empire State of Mind, Empire State of Mind II, New York (Paloma Faith), New York New York (Frank Sinatra), and Manhattan in the Sky (Kate Voegele) and sung like crazy.

 After exhausting our voices, and probably Kat’s patience, we stopped off in Liberty State Park in New Jersey, where plenty of final photos were taken with the iconic New York skyline and Hudson River behind us.

We gave Kat a present- a book of ‘Would You Rather...’ – a staple boredom game we’d played over the past few weeks. We thought she could make use of it for future Van Appreciation Days.

We dropped everyone off at the Newark Hilton Hotel, and said goodbye to most of the people. Then Kat dropped the three of us, and Sas at the Wyndham Garden Hotel, also in Newark. We hadn’t been planning to stay in New York for the night, but part way through the tour we discovered that we’d managed to book the entire rest of the trip a day out, and had one night spare.

After dumping our belongings, we’d arranged to meet Dave, Ashleigh, Carl, and Leanne in Manhattan for a final evening together, so we got an extortionate train ticket into the city.

We saw Times Square, Broadway, and the Empire State Building.

Then we popped into Macy’s for dinner (as you do)- Ashleigh, Carl, and Leanne had disappeared off into the Abercrombie and Fitch, so we met up with them later, as food was our priority, rather than clothes. We all finished off our meal with a New York cheesecake (we couldn’t resist).

On the way back, we passed Macy’s again, which had now developed an enormous queue outside- consisting entirely of teenage girls. Apparently Justin Bieber (sorry to mention the Bieber word, people) had a new perfume being realised the following day, and the first 300 people to buy it would get to meet him. We found this info out from these two completely fanatical 15 year old teenage girls, who full on admitted to stalking The Bieb on numerous occasions. Kind of feel like we’re missing out on something big here. Ah well, I guess we’ll have to wait until he releases his second perfume, or maybe a nail varnish range. Who knows???

When we got back we stayed up until 3am watching Michael McIntire clips about revolving doors, and pens etc. Love for Youtube.

Then we slept. Yay.