Today was our first day of on-foot tourist activities in DC. We aren't much for touristy things, but we haven't explored DC before- so there were things we wanted to see.

First on the list was the Arlington Cemetery. We tried going there when Mom and Dad were here, but all we found out was that you had to walk through the whole place. That wasn't going to happen- it's too large and too warm, especially in moto gear. Well, we found out that there is a tour bus that runs through the cemetery. It costs about $8 per person and takes 40 minutes, though you can hop off to see things and hop on the next bus.

So we rode a bus to the Metro (subway), then took the subway to the cemetery. We then walked up to the visitors center, got our tickets, and walked up to the tram. The trams are like the ones in Universal Studios and Jurassic Park- open-sided affairs that are more peoplemovers than street legal buses. The tour guide was bland and scripted, but the stops were interesting- we saw the Kennedy graves, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier(s), the changing of the guard at the tomb, the Challenger and Columbia memorials, and more. It's pretty heavy to think that the Unknown Tomb has been guarded continuously (24/7) for over 70 years. Neat- though I think we enjoyed the American WWII cemetery in France even more.

Our next stop was to take the metro back into town and go up the Old Post Office Tower. It's one of the tallest buildings/towers in DC, so it affords decent views of the whole city. Further, it is free and doesn't have lines, which puts it well ahead of the Washington Monument for us. Unfortunately, the views out the top were impaired by thick stainless-steel cables that had signs stating "DO NOT TOUCH". I assume touching them triggered a sensor/alarm so they could prevent suicides. I really don't know, though. But it made photographs a little difficult.

We ate in the food court of the Old Post Office building. It is a nice little food court with mostly local companies. It is geared at workers, not tourists, so the prices and food were very reasonable.

Our next stop was the Newseum. It's a private museum, which means our DC friends were horrified. They don't understand the concept of paying for admission to a museum! It was $20, which was a little steep, but we did spend all afternoon there. It's a very current museum- several exhibits were dealing with very current events (things happening this week). There are many movies in small "theaters" off the main exhibits. They were usually 8-15 minutes long and were easy to pick up in the middle of a segment, so you could sit down in the middle of the movie and watch until it looped and you had seen the whole thing.

We disagree on the best parts of the Newseum, but certainly the actual segments of the Berlin Wall, the "artifacts" from the FBI (the Unabomber's cabin, evidence from Patty Hearst's bank robbery, evidence from the Waco, Texas siege, etc) were amazing.

Dinner was with our hosts at Fado DC. Yum!