The Washington DC area ...

It's wet. I had a very interesting taxi ride from Virginia Beach to Norfolk airport which is almost worth a blog entry to itself. Let's just say that the taxi driver was "Southern" (he told me that on numerous occasions). He certainly doesn't like "cruelty to children". Apparently, a dad and his son were in his taxi and the child was playing around. The dad hit the boy and therefore "I grabbed the dad around the neck to choke him. I pushed him into the corner of the taxi ... just where you're sitting now ... with my hand around his neck ..." He also told me how he drove a lady down to Florida who had just taken her husband's money (or something like that - the husband had apparently been beating her up) - Virginia Beach is certainly a lovely place.

Anyway, I arrived early at the airport and was lucky enough to get onto a flight that got into Washington a few hours earlier than I had planned. Mum and dad were there to meet me (and my bag also turned up)! We had a nice pub meal for dinner and then went back to the hotel.

Yesterday we had a wonderful trip around the Washington DC area (I think that we were mainly in Maryland). It's so green!!! We found a large "hill" called the sugar loaf and walked up to the top. I enjoyed that. Apparently a black bear was lurking somewhere in the bushes (with the rattle snakes), but we didn't see it. We did spot lots of colourful birds and some huge turkey vultures that were flying overhead!

The trees were also beautiful. Every now-and-then we'd come across a bright white tree amongst the green. I'm sure that mum remembers what they're called - something like dogwood (the name certainly has "dog" in it somewhere).

We then got lost on the road. I was navigating and spotted an interesting looking road by the river and canal. We drove for about 15 minutes (on dirt roads) and arrived back exactly where we had started. This was a tad embarrassing. But then, in the middle of absolutely nowhere, dad suddenly turned the car around to go and read a sign that we'd passed. It turned out to be a sign for the site of first discovery of radio emissions from Jupiter! Later I discovered that this was the site of the Mills Cross antenna!

We kept driving and came to the Potomac river. This was incredible. The river was huge and full of rapids and waterfalls! Apparently, if you fall in then you should 1) don't try to swim, 2) roll over onto your back until you can see you toes, 3) point your toes downstream and float through it. Otherwise your feet get snagged on rocks and you drown! On the canal that runs next to the river there was an old boat being pulled along by mules! When we left we passed a deer standing by the side of the road!

Today we had a late start, but ended up driving to Gaithersburg for lunch (which was interesting as a whole heap of policemen came in to arrest someone during the meal - although they finally departed without him). Gaithersburg has NIST (the national institute of standards technology), a train station, a music shop and not much else. We therefore took the train into the centre of Washington. The train was fun and then I left mum and dad at the Portrait Gallery and went off in the rain to see the various sites including the white house and the Washington monument. I leave tomorrow at 6pm, travel for 22 hours and 15 minutes and arrive in Sydney in time for work! :)