A Day of Remembering in DC

Last night, the our bus arrived at the hotel pretty late. We went to dinner to a mall because the second bus was going to be even later and we were hungry! I was happy that I was on the first bus because I would have been so tired all day!

Today was the first day of the east coast trip that we spent in Washington. We had breakfast and we left the hotel for our tour around DC!

First we first went to see several memorials. Because we are so many people (64), we split into two groups. We looked at the Vietnam memorial which was created for the people that served in the Vietnam war from 1959 to 1975. It is a graphite wall that shows the names of all people that served in order of their death. The graphite is shining so you can see yourself when you are looking at it. Beside each name there is a symbol. A circle is for people that still live (we couldn't find any!), a cross is for people that died and a diamond is for people that were never found. It was pretty amazing to see how much effort the people that designed it, put into it.

Korean War Memorial

Vietnam Memorial

After that we looked at the Korean War memorial. It shows all the countries that were involved and there are soldiers with different emotions. Those soldiers are looking into different directions and there is no position where the soldiers are not looking at you. There is also a big wall that says 'freedom is not free' and there is another wall with engraved pictures from the war. I felt like it just seemed so real and it was really emotional and touching. Afterwards all of us went to the Lincoln memorial where Martin Luther King gave his famous 'I have a Dream' speech. Inside of the temple there was a tiny souvenir shop and a little museum. It was just so huge and enormous. It really reminded me of what I learned about it in my history class. I felt like I have already been there. We took a group picture there and some random guy just joined our pictures which was pretty funny!

Lincoln Memorial

Then we went to the Jefferson memorial. Its opening is directed towards the White House. After that, we went to the Roosevelt memorial which is the biggest of all memorials in the entire city. It is divided into four areas which stand for his four terms of presidency. Each one of those areas had some kind of waterfall that represented the time and the economic status for the time period. It was really interesting! We finally went to the Martin Luther King memorial which is really close to the water. I think it is just amazing how many memorials Washington has and it was a really nice experience to learn more about them.

Our group at the MLK Memorial!

After all those memorials we headed to Union Station, where we had lunch and some free time. Afterwards we went to the Holocaust museum which was really interesting and also really touching for all of us. The day was almost over after that, but we headed to Georgetown to go shopping for some time and walk around on M Street before dinner. I had a hot dog with fries which was pretty good! The other girls that had chicken sandwiches said that their meals were good as well.

So, overall we had a really nice but exhausting day. The weather was pretty cold but at least it didn't rain or snow! The weather forecast says that we are going to get a snowstorm on Tuesday! I really hope that it is not too bad!

Tomorrow we are headed to Capitol Hill and the Smithsonian. We're excited for our second and final day in DC!

-- Janne (Germany) & Janni (Finland)