Castles take DC part 2

I told you. this second part would be a long time coming. not that anyone cares, of course. and I'm sorry that the slightly controversial opinion post had to come in between my vacation posts. but now that Wimbledon is over, I will hopefully have more time and energy to get the rest of my DC post out here.

(side note: Wimbledon was crazy. so many upsets. I was really hoping that Roger Federer would pull through and win his 8th Wimbledon title after being injured, and it looked like he would. but he got knocked out in the semis in 5 sets by Milos Raonic, and to be honest, that hit me hard emotionally. but I'm glad Andy Murray was able to beat Raonic and get a title. and I am hoping and praying that Federer can win the US Open this year.)

OKAY. now I'm ready to talk about Washington, DC.

we stayed in an AirBNB vacation home in the city, right next to the metro station. it was very convenient and it was in a cute red brick building. it was a bit snug, and the bathroom was connected to the one bedroom (which my parents occupied), so we had to interrupt their quiet time a lot. there was literally 6 inches between the couch that my brothers shared and my air mattress, and another 6 inches between my air mattress and the dining table. instead of eating out, we cooked our own food in the kitchen, but the closest grocery store was this organic market which had super weird, ultra-healthy food. we had to eat spinach wraps (on the blandest tortillas ever), couscous, and rice pilaf. I tried to make myself a normal quesadilla using the spinach wrap one night, but 1. I couldn't figure out how to turn on the gas stove and was waiting 30 minutes for it to turn on before I realized my mistake, and 2. the tortilla sucked. but there was also a CVS pharmacy close by, and I was able to get all the Diet Coke that I needed.

OKAY for real I'm ready to talk about Washington, DC.

the first day was probably the busiest, hottest day. we began our adventure at the Spy Museum. this was one of my favorite museums I have ever gone to. we got to see all this KGB and CIA and German spy equipment, and it was so cool. we learned how hard it is to be a spy. you can't trust anyone, and you have to be conscientious about everything: the way you walk, the way you talk, eye contact, everything. you had to be a master with disguises, and you had to be real sneaky. you couldn't be claustrophobic either. there were also some activities where we had to look at a picture and find all the suspicious items and the video cameras. basically, everyone and everything is out to get you. sounds interesting, right? well, just as we thought we were finished, THERE WAS A JAMES BOND EXHIBIT. it had all the secret tools used in every movie, and I learned more Bond trivia than I signed up for. it was really neat. for the rest of the trip, we looked around at people and tried to decide if they were spies or not. good times.

since we didn't end up getting a White House tour (we either failed the background check, or there were too many people requesting tours), we just walked around the area, took some pictures, went to the World War II memorial, and walked around near the Washington Monument (our tour was the next day). then we had a guided tour at the Capitol Building, which took forever to walk to, plus we were all tired and hot and grumpy. we couldn't bring anything inside the building. no pointy objects, no food, no drink (empty water bottles were okay), and we had to go through intense security. we had to wear headphones and they were all somehow connected to our tour guide's microphone. it was pretty cool because he would talk and we could all hear him, which made all the other tour guides able to give their tours at the same time. since the House was in session, we didn't get to see the whole building, but we got to see the rotunda and all the state statues. the art on the dome was incredible, and I can only imagine how hard it was to paint like that. our tour guide asked all of us where we were from so that he could specifically point out our state statues. ours was of Brigham Young, and I don't remember anyone else's, but the Florida one was the dude who invented air conditioning. in the visitors center, there were more state statues, and the other one we had was Philo T. Farnsworth, the guy who invented TV. because we were so tired of walking, we took a break in the visitor's center to just sit down and Wesley thought he saw Jason Chaffetz, our US Representative and got really excited. we will never know if it was indeed Jason Chaffetz, but it's nice to think that it was.

 WWII memorial

 Obama was chilling inside 

 Justin uses every chance he gets to brag about how I stopped growing when I was 14 and how he's 13 and 6 inches taller than me. he's also jealous that I have a Freddie Mercury t shirt and he doesn't.

 WWII memorial feat. family of tourists

 I'm just a bill, yeah I'm only a bill, and I'm (standing) here on Capitol Hill

 Brigham Young statue

the best family picture we could get. we were all tired and hungry. and yes Wesley is wearing a jacket in this 90 degree weather. I question his motives.

Day 2 was a bit more cloudy, but it was still hot and humid. we spent a lot of time at museums, including the Air and Space and the American History museum. both of them were really cool, and I learned that I would not qualify for an airline stewardess in the 50s or the 60s. you had to be at least 5'3", and I'm 5'0". you also had to be really good looking and wear flashy clothes. in the 1980s however, they adopted the traditional attire and more people could do it, not just average-height females. also, here is some tennis trivia: Roland Garros was the first person to cross the Mediterranean Sea by air, and was a French aviator and fighter pilot during WWI. the stadium where the French Open is played was named after him! we also got to visit the Jefferson memorial, the Roosevelt memorial, and the Washington Monument. I loved reading all the quotes from our early Founding Fathers and one of the Thomas Jefferson ones was about the importance of religious freedom and how our motto is "in God we trust". it makes me sad how our country is less focused on that now. but enough about politics. here are some pictures. (my mom's camera battery died so there weren't a lot of pictures from this day. in fact I only have 3.)

 the next day started out rainy, but after about 10 minutes we realized our rain jackets were useless as it started to warm up. we started our day at the Library of Congress. there was an exhibit featuring 40 Books That Influenced America, and guess which book was number 4 on the list? THE BOOK OF MORMON! who would've thought, with all the recent criticism our church has received? apparently it was a good influence on enough people that it made the top 40 and the Library of Congress owns an original copy. Needless to say we were all pretty stoked about that. the architecture was also amazing. after that, we went to the National Archives and got to see the original Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Magna Carta. the Declaration was pretty faded, so if there is any treasure map there, it's probably impossible to read. my mom decided to buy a fake Declaration and a fake Bill of Rights to hang in our house. no treasure maps on those, either. thank you National Treasure for ruining our hopes.

so I know I'm taking forever and this post is already longer than you signed up for, so I'll really try to keep this short. after we did all that, we went to the White House Visitor's Center because we didn't get to do the real thing. that house has SO MANY FREAKING ROOMS that probably aren't used for anything except to show off things. (as is Kensington palace.) then we did the Lincoln Memorial (ABE LINCOLN IS AWESOME) and then we did a tour of Ford's Theatre, which was probably my favorite thing we did the entire trip. we got to go inside the theatre and our tour guide literally put on a "show" from the stage of the theatre, giving all the details of Lincoln's assassination. he told us what play was going on, where the Lincoln's were, the life story of John Wilkes Booth, and how he was hunted down and killed. my favorite part of the story was that the dude who was supposed to kill VP Andrew Johnson got too drunk that night that he didn't end up doing anything. it was actually so cool to learn all the extra details. I also learned that pretty much the entire Lincoln family went crazy after that, which isn't surprising.

well, this concludes part 2 to our adventure in DC! just a heads up, part 3 will be pretty lame because my already-annoying allergies really decided to act up, so I was on Benadryl the whole time. (naturally I was really tired and grumpy). so this was definitely the most exciting part of the trip. thanks for putting up with all my pointless ramblings, and stay tuned for part 3! and in the words of Ron Burgundy, "don't just have a great night, have an American night!"