Washington

I start my first trip to the capital of United States with a family brunch in China Town. My cousin Thomas lives in Washington together with his lovely wife Endea. It is great to have friends and family around the world, so one can feel like at home in different parts of the world…

Thomas leads us to his favorite restaurant across China Town and I find out that a hipster café culture is popular in Washington, too. And same like in Abu Dhabi, there are popular weekend brunches. They seem so popular that we have to wait almost half an hour to get the table. The restaurant bursts at the seams, but is very cozy here. I don’t know whether to go for the eggs or the French toast, but than I remember that in America French toast is served with sugar (in my country we eat it salty with ketchup or cheese) and so I end up with goat cheese salad and ice-coffee. We laugh at how my uncle paid for this mistake with sugared French toast. And then Endea and I laugh at the American residents originally coming from India. They seem to be doing the same problems in the hospital as they do onboard the plane. 🙂 (Endea works as a nurse.)

After the brunch, I say goodbye to my family and continue to explore Washington’s main sights. Fortunately, everything important here is located nicely together around the MALL park under the supervision of the White House. It’s so hot outside and very green. It doesn’t look like an autumn. Not far from the White House is the Obelisk and after Obelisk I find the gigantic World War II Memorial. Then I see a large mirror lake and the most famous Memorial of President Abraham Lincoln, who fought against slavery and paid for it with his life. It seems that around the Mall you can find memorials of all prominent people (in addition to the most famous presidents also philosopher Martin Luther King), who dreamed of a perfect state and had great plans with America. There is still a great atmosphere, as if the great thoughts of these great people were still flying in the air.

In summer, various open-air concerts are said to be held at the Mall Park during the jazz days, and for free. In addition, most national museums are located in this area. And again, the best news, admission is free! We are in the Capital and education should be accessible to everyone. My cousin says that the most popular nowadays is the newly opened Museum of African American History and Culture. But these days getting there is a lot of effort. The ticket need to be booked in advance, as the museum is still in great demand. Certainly I will not manage to visit all the museums in the district, but for the start I choose at least one – Natural History Museum, where I go through the entire evolution of the planet and humanity. At the portraits of our predecessors, I realize that before we all divided into blacks, whites, Arabs or Asians, we were all very hairy and not far from the monkeys… 🙂