We walked into Washington today, didn't take long, just eight blocks down Connecticut Avenue which brought us right to the front of The White House. We found a cheap coffee shop, Cosi, to have breakfast, not recommended! From there we thought we would have a look at another monument, but we couldn't reach it because security was as tight as a .... Everywhere was closed off with barriers, buses, police cars and police. So...we sat down on the kerb and waited for the Independence Day parade. The full razzmatazz of the USA was in the parade. It was led by a cavalcade of police on their Harley D's and from there came the Armed Forces, who, of course, got a huge cheer. For the next two hours there were marching bands, floats, twirlers and all sorts of other participants displaying all that is good about America.
After an hour it was too hot to remain on the kerb so we wandered through the crowds up towards The Capitol Building, still watching the parade. There were thousands of people, but all were friendly and in high spirits on their holiday. Alcohol had been banned from the city centre and there was no sign of any. Police were all over monitoring everything. Apparently over the day only 5 people were arrested for drugs and poor behaviour! By the time we got to The National Mall, an open green park area, the parade had finished. We wanted to go to the Air and Space Museum, a two storey museum covering everything the American's have done. It was a little disappointing for me. There was too much stuff with a lot of technical information which I hadn't time to read even though I may have wanted to. But it was cool, had toilets and seats!
By now it was the end of the day and we had to find an open metro station. By 2115 we were in our room watching the magnificent 17 minute Washington DC firework display. Pretty impressive!
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