Postcard from Washington

We took a city tour of DC this morning, again we had a local guide, rather than our usual guy.

He took us to see the White House, Iwo Jima, past the Pentagon and onto the Arlington Cemetery.
The cemetery is absolutely huge; 600 acres, 400,000 graves, divided into 70 sections, with all the graves lined up like soldiers falling into rank.

We saw the Kennedy graves; John, Jackie and their two children are all together and there is an eternal flame that burns alongside them.

Back in the city, we revisited the Lincoln memorial and what we missed last night was the spot where Martin Luther King had stood when he gave his 'I have a dream' speech. The perks of having a tour guide!

We also saw the memorials for the Vietnam and Korean wars; the latter was quite eerie as there were statues of 18 soldiers, all nationalities, dotted across a triangular garden. What made it eerie, was the fact that wherever you stood, at least one of the statues was looking directly at you.

This afternoon we decided to visit the zoo, which was only a 10 minute walk from our hotel. It's free to visit and is the home to some giant pandas (they've recently had a baby too), which we really wanted to see.

The zoo was bigger than we expected and we ended up spending over 4 hours wandering around. It was lovely to see the pandas up close.

We debated going to Georgetown tonight, but instead stayed local for food and chilled in the hotel.

Tomorrow is our last day of the tour, it's gone so fast!

Today's blip is (going clockwise from top left), The Lincoln memorial, the White House, Arlington cemetery, giant panda and the Washington Memorial (remember Forrest Gump?!)