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A group of nine of us decided we'd had enough of working so decided to go on a mini adventure to Toronto. As we were flying from Washington, we decided to spend 2 days exploring the nation's capital first. So bright and early at 930am we set off on the 3 hour journey from Ocean City to Washington DC. It rained throughout the whole journey and I remained optimistic that it would stop by the time we arrived, it didn't. So after a quick Starbucks break, we set off in the rain to see the sites. On our walk we passed by the Bank of America, the US Treasury and eventually we made it to the White House. Even though I have been to Washington before, the White House was somewhat smaller than we all imagined, but it was still definitely a must-see site. After the White House we continued walking towards the National Mall, passing by the Washington Monument and the World War II Memorial. By this point we had had enough of the rain so we thought we'd be educated and we went to the National Museum of American History and as part of the National Mall, it was free entry! It was a really interesting museum, there were exhibitions on Jewish and African Immigration into the US, on popular culture where they had the witch's hat and shoes from the Wizard of Oz and a Dumbo ride that used to be in Disneyland. They also had an exhibit on the US Presidents and as well as the First Ladies. After a quick look in the gift shop, we returned to the hostel to join up with those who had decided to not come to the museum. In the evening we went to Nando's for dinner, something which everyone was excited for as there are only a few Nando's restaurants in the US and they are all in Washington. After dinner, we returned to the hostel tired and full, and spent the rest of the evening relaxing before getting an early night.
The next morning, we decided we wanted to pick up where we left off yesterday as there were a number of sites we missed out due to the rain. So after indulging in our free breakfast of bagels, cereals and muffins (you could definitely tell we were all students on minimum wage!) we headed out to the World War II Memorial. While at the Memorial, we had the excitement of an escorted blacked out car passing by us, carrying who we believed was Barack Obama! We continued on walking around the Mall to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and then the Lincoln Memorial, which was by far the biggest and grandest. Next on our tour of Washington DC was the Martin Luther King Memorial, the District of Colombia War Memorial and then we caught the subway to the US Capitol before returning to the hostel and then onto the airport. It was a bit of a running joke between the group about the fact that we were flying on a US Airways plane that was operated by Air Wisconsin, as to us it just didn't seem like a real airline, and there were a few people in our group (Aimee) who are terrified of flying so when we saw the tiny plane this was definitely not reassuring! It was made even worse by the fact we were an hour late taking off due to 'Ground Staff not being there at Toronto Airport', which was definitely a misinterpretation of the pilot's announcement. We eventually take off with the most magnificent view of all the main sites in Washington.
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