Yeah so I missed breakfast again. I was up until 2am the night before so when my alarm went off at 9am I was certainly not in the mood to get up. I eventually got up around 11 again I think and went down to the common room to check Facebook & emails. I Skyped a whole bunch of people; my Dad, little sister Laura, little brother Aidan and step Mum Elaine all came on to talk on the first call. Next I spoke to the girlfriend, my Mum, my sister Elke and step dad Robert. They were just about to eat KFC so Laura enjoyed trying to make me jealous. But I reminded them that I was indeed, Skyping them from Washington D.C = I win.

Today's mission was to complete what I didn't the previous day - Arlington Cemetery. For those who don't know, this is the place where thousands of American soldiers are buried; from the Civil War, through the World Wars, to Afghanistan and Iraq. President Kennedy is also buried there amongst some other famous names.

The weather was great again today so I donned my sandals and shorts and set off to walk to the cemetery.

I was just across the first road when a girl I recognised from the hostel was walking alongside me. Normally it would be that awkward time when two people are walking at the same speed and you feel like you should either speed up or slow down - how anti-social we are lol. But this is travelling life so I threw out a hello. We chatted for a short while we walked the same way. She was from Switzerland… or Sweden. One of those European countries that everyone (me) mixes up anyway. We parted ways after 5 or 10 minutes and I continued on my own in the baking heat. I strolled past the busy Lincoln Memorial again as the bridge to the cemetery is directly behind it.

The bridge is quite impressive; going over a big river, with lots of keep fit people running over it, planes take off somewhere nearby and therefore pass over the bridge quite low every 10 minutes so or which is pretty cool to see. There was a small area of grass near the entrance to the bridge and a few people were sat reading overlooking the river, and for some reason quite a few male keep fitters chose to stop here to do some abs crunches and various other abs exercises. Probably one of those competitive instances that some men have - as an alpha male American runs by and sees someone exercising;, 'Oh this guy is doing crunches!? I'm gonna get down & do some leg raises! See how the motherf***er likes that!' Maybe that's how the congregation formed I don't know.

The bridge was quite windy so I had to take off my faithful hat, hoping that no one would judge my hat-hair. Even though I have short hair, once I wear a hat for an hour or so, when I take it off my hair has taken a unique style that's impossible to get any other way. Usually having, like, a parting on both sides of my head and the top just flattened horribly in all different directions.

While I was on the bridge I started talking to another person, this one was also from Sweden... or Switzerland. She spoke a lot better English than the other and she told me that she had just arrived in D.C and due to start working for a law firm for a few months. For today she wanted to visit the cemetery and the Pentagon. We discussed that she probably wouldn't get very close to the Pentagon or see very much and also discussed my travelling plans. I didn't ask too many questions about her intended work because, well, it didn't interest me whatsoever.

We stuck together as we entered the cemetery as we both wanted to see the Kennedy burial site first so we decided to help each other find it. You realise pretty quick how big this cemetery is; I hadn't done much homework on the place and the map I had of the city ended just at the entrance of it so I didn't really know. I did now, this place is huge. It's over 600 acres. See that now means something as it can be compared to the 800-odd acres of Central Park that I mentioned in my earlier blog. This place was just 200 acres less than the massive Central Park, and it's all gravestones. Why am I visiting again?

As we walked up along the first long path an ambulance rushed past us. I made an inappropriate joke about it being a handy place to die if you was gonna - it got one of those laughs where the person really doesn't want to laugh as it seems offensive, but they still see the humour and therefore can't help but actually laugh. So it's okay I didn't offend her just yet. Terese - I just remembered her name.

We walked past hundreds and thousands of white headstones up towards the JFK burial site. Understandably there was a discreet hushed atmosphere everywhere; it was quite refreshing to have so many muted Americans. The JFK site itself was very nice; it was on higher ground than most of the cemetery so it had a view across some of the other headstones, and the Washington Monument still stood prominent in the distance. It was all cool and stuff, for a bit - but to be honest I didn't have the same emotional connection to all this as the patriotic American citizens, so I moved on quicker than most.

I parted ways with Swedish at this point and headed up towards the 'Unknown Soldier'. I've heard and seen of this before so was looking forward to see it for real. For those who don't know it's a tomb that started with a soldier from World War One whose remains couldn't be identified. There are now a few unknown soldiers there from different wars. It is permanently guarded by a military guard. Quite a few countries have them but I've never seen one before.

I was very fortunate here with the timing. As I approached up the hill I could see a crowd but I just assumed it was the usual tourists. I got closer and realised there was some kind of ceremony happening. I found myself a good spot and watched the proceedings. I never actually knew exactly what was happening but basically there was a line of old women (who I presume had been involved somehow in WW2) and they would walk in a line of 5 led by an old man who was dressed in full military uniform to the centre, and the women would all drop a white flower in front on the tomb. This repeated over and over until each woman representing a different state of America, had laid down a flower. Yeah it got a bit boring, but I wanted to see if anything exciting would happen.

Then some 'leading lady' came down some steps with a soldier and she laid down the final flower. Two more military guys marched over and they all saluted while one of them played the national anthem through the trumpet. It was quite touching to see all this and then hear the national anthem played live. I've seen things like this so many times on the news and in movies but to hear it here was pretty special. Lots of American's started crying at this point; the American national anthem is kind of depressing and associated with death I think though - compared to my image of the British anthem being screamed and shouted by football fans in glory! Maybe it's just my limited experience thus far.

I did feel like a bit of an intruder. It looked like many people were there for the very reason of the ceremony and there's me, a British tourist in my hat, sandals and shorts recording the whole thing on my camera, not emotional in the slightest. Oh well they didn't close it off or anything so it wasn't my fault.

After there I went to the memorial for the crashed space shuttles; the recent one in 2003… or 2005, around then, and the one a fair few years further back.
I spent a good few hours in the cemetery without really noticing. The place was huge and like a big maze, quite easy to get lost. It would be pretty scary at night time. Insert joke about more zombies.

I can't really write too much about the time there apart from that. I made my way back to the hostel which took a good 40 minutes or so. I had a plan here though - those doomsday people! I was ready! I thought of all the questions I could ask and thought of their probable and predictable answers, and therefore my counter-questions. It was on my route home, this was going to be great. As I neared the area I realised something terrible. They had all gone. I don't know if it was just a one day thing or they were asked to move or what, but there was no trace :( Maybe they did the world a favour and topped themselves, since they were looking forward to death so much - why wait huh? One can hope. I was severely disappointed though. Lots of fun, missed out on.

On the way back to the hostel I saw another crazy homeless man; he was running and kind of, ducking & dodging things that weren't there. It looked pretty scary whatever was happening. Not scary for me, but scary for him.

I decided I was gonna keep sober whilst in D.C. There are a lot of museums and monuments to see. A lot of sensible things that need a clear head basically and plus the night life didn't seem all that great. So my plan was to just wander around during the days, then write blogs & Skype people in the evenings. Later, on this particular evening when I was hungry I took a stroll to find somewhere to eat. I came across this fast food restaurant called Five Guys. Bit of an odd name I thought. Anyway I went in to check it out. Pretty much all they sold was burgers and chips. Sorry, fries. Another silly little mistranslation there that can get you totally the wrong food. The restaurant walls were covered in awards and newspaper cut-outs of reviews for their burgers and fries. ''The best $5 burger you can buy''. I opted for the bacon cheese burger and fries. You can choose as many free toppings as you like from the list which is pretty cool. I chose mushrooms & onions.

This. Meal. Was. Huge.

Honestly this is why they call it Five Guys. One meal serves five guys. The burger was ginormous for starters; it was properly fat and good quality as well, absolutely loaded with the toppings, so many onions and mushrooms and decent bacon (none of that terrible bacon you get at McD's). It was served in a brown paper bag so I just grabbed the huge burger out and started eating at a table. I had a few bites and realised I should take my time as it was going to be a big effort. I looked in for some fries and grabbed some out. It took me around 15 minutes or so to finish off the burger, all the while eating fries at regular intervals. I looked in the bag after I thought I was near the end of the meal to see the equivalent of about 4 large portions of British McDonald's fries. No joke. There was a paper cup style thing that the serving of fries was meant to go in, what a joke, I needed a bucket. I ate as many as I could and squeezed all the rest in to the large cup and set off back to the hostel - slowly. I could barely walk. I felt like I'd eaten a large wilderbeast and three fields of potatoes.

Taking the cup of fries back to the hostel was just me not admitting that I couldn't finish the meal. I kept the cup with me, disillusioned and optimistic, thinking I could eat them sooner or later - but I didn't. I had to throw them away, all 1.5kgs worth of left over fries.

I went to bed breathing heavily; kind of regretting the meal choice but also strangely happy with the meal choice. I was fat and full. I was an American.