We're back from a wonderful two week break in the United States. In this post and the next I'll share some pictures and talk a little about the experiences we had.
Since much earlier in the year we'd planned on spending the holidays in the US with our son who's studying for an exchange year in Baltimore. This was well before it became clear that the Alps would be getting the most snow over the holiday period than we've seen in the last decade or so. A bit of a shame - we typically enjoy the Swiss slopes at this time of year - but actually we were just fine with it; it turned out to be an unforgettable experience.
It all started on the morning of December 20th, when we took a 7am train towards Zurich airport.
Our flight was with United, direct to Dulles airport.
On arrival in Dulles we took the once-futuristic elevated shuttle to the terminal.
After getting through immigration quite quickly - it really makes a difference leaving on the 11:45am United flight rather than the 12:45pm Swiss one! - we took the shuttle to collect our rental car. We'd booked a BMW X1, but with 5 people, each with backpacks and carry-ons plus a central shared checked suitcase, I was worried about space, so we jumped at the chance to (cheaply) upgrade to an X3. Not a huge increase in capacity, but still - I do believe it made a difference in terms of comfort.
We headed towards the city: we'd booked an Airbnb right near the Capitol. I wish I'd figured out the option to avoid tolls right away with our car's guidance system - it's always so hard when you get off a long flight and have to negotiate these things - because the cost of using the EZ-pass transponder provided by the rental company was a little pricey… oh well. We'll see when the charges hit. With any luck it won't be anything like the costs we racked up on the drive from Sao Paolo to Paraty during our round-the-world trip.
I took the above screenshot on my phone just as we entered DC itself, with this photo taken shortly after as we crossed the Potomac river.
I'd been a little concerned about being in the US between the election and inauguration, but it mostly seemed quite subdued. Just the occasional reminder of the political climate on display.
Our Airbnb was - as expected - a big room with 5 beds. Which was absolutely fine… our son - the one staying in Baltimore - joined us there and didn't have jet lag to deal with, so he and I ended up each doing Advent of Code at different times for these days: he stayed up late while I attacked it a few hours later when the jet lag woke me up.
The room really was extremely close to the Capitol, so we walked past it whenever we went anywhere.
It's really a magnificent building.
We ended up taking lots of snaps of it from different locations.
It was really nice seeing it at different times of day, too.
It was extremely code - a cold front hit just as we arrived in DC - but at least it was sunny and dry. It was nothing compared to the cold front that's hitting the US right now, by all accounts.
We had a lot of fun walking around the city, though, despite the cold. And it was nice not having to rely on a car or public transport while we were there.
We did come across our first Cybertruck in the wild, which the kids appreciated: I'd seen a few on previous trips Stateside, but none of them parked.
We have a collective soft spot for seasonal lattes, so one of our first stops in DC was to a Starbucks.
When we needed food we mostly hit nearby food trucks.
Souvenir T-shirts, hats and hoodies were also available by the truckload, of course.
We were mainly in DC to visit the incredible museums there. Our first stop after Starbucks was the National Museum of the American Indian.
We liked this one a lot: the architecture was really interesting and I really enjoyed an exhibit of Plains Indian art, which introduced me to ledger art. Incidentally this museum's gift shop was probably the most interesting we went to on this trip.
Up next were the Asian Art Museum and the African Art Museum, both of which we accessed via the Sackler Gallery. (It was a little shocking to still see that name on the building, honestly.)
To wrap up the first day we spent some time in the Air & Space Museum.
It was a little disappointing to see renovations meant that large sections of the museum were inaccessible… that said, we knew we'd be visiting the other location of the Air & Space Museum out by Dulles airport - the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, which I'll talk about in the next post - so we weren't especially bothered about spending lots of time in the central one.
And as we were all quite tired, we ended up mostly drinking tea in the basement cafe.
The following day we spent the morning at the African American History & Culture Museum.
I really enjoyed the "culture" section of the museum on upper floors, although the whole thing was very interesting.
The afternoon was spent at the incomparable Natural History Museum.
I love visiting this museum: it must be my third visit, over the years.
The kids did, too, although it has to be said that some of the exhibits are showing their age. Ba-dum, tish.
On our third day in DC we checked out of the Airbnb and walked across to the National Gallery of Art - another incredible resource for the people of the Unites States (and visitors from around the world).
We were the first through the doors at 10am. If I'd known then what I do now, we'd have gone straight to the exhibition on the Impressionists. I later ended up wasting the best part of an hour in a queue for this admittedly really impressive exhibition.
The gallery was full of priceless paintings. It was really quite something to see so many iconic works "in the flesh", such as this self-portrait by Rembrandt.
Around lunchtime we headed out of the city towards the first state of the union, Delaware. A highlight of the drive was crossing the still-really-impressive Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Well worth the $2.50 toll plus the $15 transponder fee.
On arriving in Delaware we headed to the Beaches area. We'd booked an Airbnb at the Sea Colony community in Bethany Bay. We had a very nice apartment on a lake for the four days we stayed there.
We had views across the water on two sides of the building, which was lovely.
Here's the view from the master bedroom.
Still being jet lagged - and doing the last few days of Advent of Code, as we arrived there on December 23rd - we were up before sunrise for several of our mornings there.
A wonderful view to start the day.,
Bethany Beach is a very quaint little seaside town. It was off-season, of course, which in my opinion just added to its charm,
We had a number of windswept walks along the beach,
Not exactly sunbathing weather, but at least we did have the odd ray of sunshine.
One of the main reasons for visiting Delaware was to visit my old friend Mark Webb. He'd suggested it as a possible destination for our mini tour of the area, and - once we'd booked - had very kindly invited us along to join him and his family for a magnificent traditional British Christmas dinner. Yes, we had Yorkshire pudding and even Christmas crackers. A wonderful evening!
We left Delaware on the 27th, heading north to Pennsylvania. We'll talk about that in the next post.
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