Washington DC

Leaving Sydney

The USA trip started, as most trips from Down Under do, with an interminable arse haul from Sydney Airport - in our case flying to Washington, via LA, surely the most awful airport in the first world. After arriving at 6am and what seemed like hours of queuing we finally made our way into Terminal 3; only to discover the choice for breakfast was Starbucks or Burger King. Luckily we persisted and found a great seafood restaurant, Gladstones, which served a spicy Mexican breakfast - accompanied by a mean Bloody Mary !

Bloody Breakfast

At Washington Airport we were enthusiastically greeted by Angus and quickly made our way back to Arlington where Caren and 4 month old Lochlan were waiting for us.  A 4 hour house tour followed - Angus and Caren have got some work ahead of them to fill up their place -  although Angus has already started knocking down walls luckily.

Lochie

Speaking off renovations, Saturday was also dedicated to gardening and preparing for a BBQ with some of Caren and Gus's local friends. An overgrown corner of the yard was turned into a seating area; plants were transferred and fertile soil was saved and re-used.

Before

During

After

In between the social activity there was also time for seeing the town. Friday morning after arriving we headed into the mall to see the prime sites - White House, Congress, Lincoln Memorial - and the Washington Monument from 27 different angles.

Jefferson Memorial

WWII Memorial - Pacific

Abe

Washington Monument

The last full day in Washington was spent at the Smithsonian - fewer photos indoors (none at the National History Museum), although we managed to visit the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and saw some great old rockets. Amazingly the only food available in the museum is provided by McDonalds - so Ilaria relented and had what she calls a 'dirty meal' - fittingly an Angus burger.

Dirty Burger

Sputnik - or similar !

Rocket

Finally - the two most famous buildings in Washington - if not the USA.

Congress

Chez Barack

We also found time for a trip to Alexandria - with so many photos it gets its own blog post. The rest of the Washington photos are here.

6 Months 5 continents

Guess where !

In January 2010 I blogged about the previous 12 months travels where I'd ended up visiting 5 continents with my trip to Egypt on the way home from an Irish wedding. Little did I know that 18 months later I'd be visiting my fifth continent of the year mid-July - on the start of our USA trip. I now have 4 months to get to South America - not likely, but never say never :)

Early January, work took me to Qatar for 4 hours of meetings. By chance I was staying in the same hotel as the Socceroos; unfortunately the unexpected call up to replace injured stars never came. I did however manage to score tickets to the Asian Cup Final match between North Korea and Iran (playing for the Axis of Evil cup) which was quite an experience.

Axis of Evil Cup

From Qatar we jumped via Kuwait to Cairo for some customer meetings. Despite their proximity, Cairo is very much in Africa whereas Qatar is considered part of Asia. I stopped the taxi on the way back from the meeting to take the photo below of the Pyramids in the rain - a far cry from the beautiful weather I had a year earlier. A couple of weeks later, all hell broke lose in Cairo, of course.

Wet Cairo

By May I'd been not once but twice to Europe; managing to visit countries as varied as England, Ireland, Bulgaria and Sweden. On the way home from Sweden I stopped in on Mumbai - from  4 degrees to 44, which made for interesting packing. A few days after the first trip I was up in Jakarta - meaning I'd covered West Asia, South Asia and South East Asia by April.

The Liffey in Dublin

I happened to be in the UK the weekend of the Champions League final - though once again I missed the last minute call-up I was secretly hoping for.

Of course, the fifth and final continent is also home sweet home in Australia.

Hill End