DC

so the first part of our trip was to be a 4 hour drive to washington dc. we went to newark airport and picked up our hire car which was a pontiac g6 coupe with shiny wheels. it was quite a nice car and a bit of a result. my friend took the wheel and after a few wrong turns courtesy of the GPS telling us to go the wrong way up one way streets (i think the maps may have been a little old) off we went. we had both made cds to listen to in the car and as my friend was driving he got first pick and we put one of his cds in. it started off ok with some ash and stereophonics and the killers but then it went downhill badly when some jazzy lounge music came on.
what's this?. i asked
thats amy winehouse, her album is really good, he replied.
oh dear.
i hate amy winehouse and her retro mock r'n'b soul jazz type of music. its complete shit and completely unoriginal. she's basically a karaoke singer. its the type of thing that should be played in lifts or whilst you are waiting for a double espresso in starbucks. its not proper music and she is way overrated. i didn't say anything and just sat there with the expression of someone listening to nails being dragged down a blackboard, wishing for the cd to be over. i didn't know it at the time but it was about to get musically much worse later on in the trip.


about halfway to washington we ran into a really heavy thunderstorm and decided to pull into a service station and wait for it to pass. a half hour later it was all gone and off we went.
we arrived in washington at around 5 pm and checked into our hotel. i then suggested we go out and see some of the sites as we were only there that day and besides, it was a lovely sunny evening for a walk. my friend somewhat surprisingly reluctantly agreed.

we walked along pennsylvania avenue to the white house and then through the park to the national mall. we had walked about 30 minutes till then. i then saw the lincoln memorial and said we should go see that but my friend said he wasn't going to go. eh????. we are in washington dc and you don't want to go the lincoln memorial which is just a 20 minute walk away???. no! he replied.
thats cool, i said, see you in around an hour. i left him sat there and headed off. i was surprised at his lack of curiousity and enthusiasm for seeing sites and began to wonder why he had even bothered coming. maybe he would get better and more into seeing stuff later on in the trip, i thought.









the lincoln memorial turned out to be wicked and i took lots and lots of pics. when i returned to where he was sat waiting for me, he seemed in a bit of a mood. turns out he was hungry and wanted to get something to eat. i nearly mentioned walking up to capitol hill but he didn't look too happy so decided not to suggest it and i took a few pics from a distance. we went and walked back towards our hotel in georgetown and we found a nice thai restaurant and ate there that night.