Memorial Day weekend in Washington DC

(sara & chrisch) While planning our trip to the US we didn’t think of Memorial Day, but by chance we were here in DC at the right time - we had an awesome weekend. On Saturday evening we strolled through the Mall for some site seeing and night pictures of the monuments.

After our visit of the Capitol Hill Baptist church on Sunday morning we enjoyed the rolling thunder motorcycle parade. It would have been fun to participate.

The next event was the Memorial Day concert at Capitol Hill, where we were among the thousands of visitors of course. Half way through the concert there was a security announcement that all the visitors are requested to leave in an orderly manner and to seek shelter due to an approaching major storm. Indeed the sky was very dark. The evacuation was quite an adventure, but everything went smoothly. The rain started when we arrived at the bus station and there were some thunders. However the storm was in our opinion still minor.

Memorial Day Concert (aus USA Rundreise: Coatesville & Washington DC)

On Memorial Day we visited the Arlington cemetery and heard the speech of President Obama at the Arena /Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Unfortunately we couldn’t see him. However we don’t complain since we didn’t even expect to meet him until we learnt about this event at the gate to the cemetery.

Verterans at Arlington Cementry (aus USA Rundreise: Coatesville & Washington DC)

Afterwards we walked over the bridge and along the shore of the Pontiac to the Jefferson memorial. From there we continued our walk to the Mall, where we arrived at the just on time to watch the military and school parade. It was very hot so that we escaped after a while into some of the museums to enjoy the air conditioner and of course the excellent exhibitions – amazing that all the Smithsonian museums are for free. We had a lot of fun and moreover all these events helped us to understand and appreciate the American patriotism a bit more.

Parade (aus USA Rundreise: Coatesville & Washington DC)

Georgetown
Georgetown is a nice village of Washington, famous for its university and numerous pubs and restoaurants. We were blessed and could stay at Barbeys house - another contact from Cameroon. However we had one more thing in common.  They are as well Swiss, but living in the States since about 30 years. It was very interesting to talk with them about the two cultures and politics.
Sara had the possibility to accompany Charlotte one morning to the Georgetown Pediatric Hopspital and to experience ward rounds there.