Crossing into the US at Niagara Falls proved interesting, when the Immigration official didn’t know quite what to make of our situation (how can our employer grant us that long for a vacation!?) and asked us to step back into the waiting room while he discussed it further with a colleague.  Eventually we are waved on through, the last back onto the bus before continuing to Buffalo, where we then had a few hours wait for our connection through to Washington DC.  A bus station in a large American city at around 10pm at night is never going to be a particularly nice place to be, but this felt decidedly dodgy and we felt glad to be on our way at last.

Overnight bus rides should definitely be restricted to under 25 year olds! The double decker ‘Megabus’ (the low cost carrier equivalent in bus companies) was completely full and such a tight squeeze that Dave and I barely slept a wink. We felt like we had been hit by a bus as we rolled into Union Station in downtown Washington DC at 9:30 the following day . That ‘average’ feeling would last for a good couple of days. Some things are best left for young backpackers and we vow never to do that again!

Our time in Washington coincided with the Spring Festival and the much anticipated and imminent opening of the famous Cherry Blossom flowers on the 3,000 odd Cherry Blossom trees located around the monument district and on banks of the Potomac River.

After much research the best self-catering and cost effective hotel option I could find was with the ‘Extended Stay America’ chain and we booked two weeks in Alexandria. Basically a larger than average hotel room with two queen beds and a kitchenette for a reasonable $110 per night. It was a 10 minute bus ride then a 30 minute metro trip into downtown DC, as anything closer than that the price easily doubled or more per night, so it suited us fine. Alexandria is on the Virginian side of the Potomac River which forms the border between Washington DC and the State of Virginia, just a few metro stops past the Pentagon.

Winter was really dragging its feet and we even had some snow a couple of days after our arrival. There is a lot of interest in what the Cherry Blossoms are doing, and there are a number of websites dedicated to historical facts and figures, web cams, and the Parks Service publish their prediction of ‘peak bloom’ (which is when 70% of the buds will be open). The longer winter and cold weather meant that the Parks Service had to revise their prediction of peak bloom which put it back to the end of our two week stay.

While our stop in Washington was intended as a chance to catch up on some long overdue school work, the city is home to the famous Smithsonian Institute, and we were really looking forward to taking in some of their famed museums as they are a wonderful educational source in themselves.  The Smithsonian name is synonymous with the pursuit of knowledge and as the world’s largest museum and research complex, I was really excited to have the opportunity to see it for myself at last.

With 9 research centres and 19 museums (17 of which are in Washington) the girls and I spent an hour or two reading up on them and planning how we could make best use of our time. First stop would be the National Zoological Park (of course!) – “leader in animal care, science, education, and providing a phenomenal visitor experience” and like all of the Smithsonian Institutes does not charge admission – Wow.  Checking out the zoo website before we went I got the hotel to print out some of the worksheets for the girls to do as they walked around, which they always love doing – turns it into a hide and seek type activity and  increases the retention of some knowledge!

In spite of the cold weather, there is still an impressive collection of animals and typical of the Smithsonian museum model, there were a lot of interactive displays for everyone to get ‘hands on’. There was so much information it really was like a cross between a zoo and a museum.  There were several buildings that allowed relief from the cold and were packed with displays such as brain sizes of animals, examples of Orang-utans memory games, microscopes set up with various bugs and interactive maps of the world and reading areas with collections of beautiful books and National Geographic magazines.

Easily the most comprehensive and impressive zoo I have visited, ever! It is huge and you wouldn’t believe you are in the centre of the city.  We spent the entire day there and still missed a couple of things.

The Easter weekend was also fast approaching and we were keen for the girls to enjoy some of the festivities – USA style. A quick Google search indicated that some of the Easter Fairs had already been held the previous weekend and we no chance of getting into the traditional ‘White House Easter Egg Roll’ on Barack’s front lawn as this is reserved for US citizens only. We managed to find a community church that was holding an egg hunt on the Saturday afternoon with no pre-registration necessary, and it was being held at

Lincoln Park in the suburb of Capitol Hill – perfect.

So we decided to make a whole day of it and left the hotel early stopping first by the Smithsonian Building known as ‘The Castle’, which is the official administrative headquarters, information centre and showcases a small selection from some of their other museums.

We then continued along the Washington Mall to the annual spring kite festival which was being held around the Washington Monument (obelisk) for a couple of hours.

It was a perfect spring day, the sun was shining and many people were in shorts and t-shirts, hard to believe that only four days previously it had been snowing all day. Crazy!  The day was a little too perfect with some wishing the breeze would pick up as the kites were having difficulty getting airborne. It was a wonderfully colourful event and the green areas of Washington’s monuments were literally crawling with people. We took a quick walk around the WWII memorial before heading back to the Metro onto our Easter celebrations.

A short metro ride and 10 minute walk past some beautiful Washington traditional terrace houses got us to the egg hunt park with time to spare. Christian music filled the air and the girls enjoyed playing some of the free family friendly games on offer: bean bag toss, knocking down cans, sack races, etc.  It was like being in an American movie where wonderfully polite smiling people were all enjoying quality family fun playing games in the park, complete with stalls selling ‘Cotton Candy  and Soda’s’. Quite surreal actually.

At 2.30pm, hundreds of excited kids lined up around the cordoned off grass area where thousands of colourful plastic Easter eggs lay scattered around. To begin the hunt, the announcer began a countdown from 10, but only got as far as 5 before the tide of excited children burst through the flimsy tape and swept across the park like a tsunami, grabbing the plastic eggs as they went. It was survival of the fittest and Immi told us later that she came across one little boy at the end of the hunt who only managed to grab one egg, and that she had willingly given up one of hers. Bless her.

So not exactly an Easter egg hunt as we know it – more of an Easter egg grab and tackle!

Inside, each plastic egg had a small toy or ‘candy’ which was added to our growing collection of ‘stuff’. When we got back to the hotel, there was still enough time for the girls to build their nests (one in the room and one outside the window in case the bunny couldn’t get in). So it was chocolate all round for breakfast Sunday morning!

As our days in Washington wound down, it was time for another day out and about. An afternoon was spent in the old town of Alexandria, famous for being the birth place of George Washington, and childhood home of General Lee, the leader of the southern army during the American Civil War. The old town is filled with more of the beautiful colonial houses, and we made our way down to the riverfront for a look around the old Torpedo Factory. Yes, this really was a factory that made torpedos built during World War I and ironically completed and operational on the day the Armistice was signed. It again became useful during World War II when production was ramped up and the torpedos were tested in the river in front of the factory. Now it houses small art studios where you can watch local artists ply their crafts and buy pieces direct.

Then it was back into Washington DC for another full Museum Day.  First to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum where we had only planned to spend about three hours before moving on. There was so much to see that we ended up being there for six hours and still didn’t get to see everything.

Although we visited on a Friday, the museum was still very crowded, and again there were many interactive displays where visitors can get very ‘hands on’. The museum has on display everything from the Wright Brothers original ‘Flyer’, to the command capsule from Apollo 11. Aircraft and rockets hang from the ceilings, Saturn V rocket engines lay on display, and notable aircraft from the past 100 years all add up to give a very impressive collection, with so much written information and great presentation of everything.

We were running out of daylight to see the cherry blossoms and President memorials, but we just had to make a quick stop at the Natural History Museum where the amazing displays of rocks, minerals and crystals soon became Immi’s favourite (particularly the ‘magnetic rock’). We all swooned over the display of winning prints from the Smithsonian Nature Photography competition.

By the time we walked down to the ‘Tidal Basin’ and park area to the first Memorial -Thomas Jefferson, and found the first open cherry blossoms, the sun was setting. We continued on through the Franklin D. Roosevelt and Martin Luther King memorials and reached the seated Abraham Lincoln in the dark. A walk past the thousands of names engraved into the black granite of the wall at the Vietnam War memorial and we were all ready to head for home as it was now 9.30pm, and we had been on the go for more than twelve hours.  The girls are real troopers on days like this; they just keep on walking – mind you on the metro trip home they became very quiet and fall into bed without a sound!

I don’t mind admitting that the USA didn’t hold any real appeal for me to visit, and I went in with a very ho-hum attitude. I don’t typically like travelling to countries where on the surface it is not too dissimilar to Australia, same language (well mainly!), similar standards of living etc, not to mention that stereotypical image we have on Americans being often ignorant to all that is not American. Food (imo) is also definitely not one of their strong points. Having visited a few different parts of the States over the years, it never really made any huge impression and was always one the last countries I wanted to go back and revisit.  It is such a large country to fly over without stopping though, David had never been here and there were some friends I was wanting to catch up with that I hadn’t seen in years, so into the itinerary it went.

However… I am beyond impressed with Washington DC and am blown away by the politeness of everyone.  “Thank-you” and “you’re welcome” ring out constantly.  Whilst as a city it doesn’t seem to get a great wrap from fellow Americans, what it has to offer and how it is presented is amazing. I think they should be very thankful for The Smithsonian Institution – the world’s largest museum, education and research complex in their Nation’s capital. There is no doubt about it, when Americans put their mind to doing something – they do it damn well!  USA you are redeeming yourself!