We had to be at the Capitol building by 10 this morning for our tour, so we had to be up a little early. Amanda’s mom (Brenda) had breakfast all ready for us when we went downstairs after getting ready. The first day Amanda’s dad (Pierre) drove us into the city so that we would make it on time. We had to make a few stops off the side of the road, because Justice wasn’t feeling well and threw up once. But we did make it to our tour pretty close to on time. In looking back at my pictures, there are some things that I wish I would have actually taken pictures of, but then there would have been even more to post. Anyway we went to Mike Simpson's office across the street from the Capitol and that is where we started our tour. There is an underground passage from all of the Congressmen's offices to the Capitol, it was pretty cool. The girl that did our tour for us was a student at Boise State University and was interning during the summer. She was super sweet and took us all around the Capitol. All of the explanations are by the pictures below. After our tour we just ate there on Capitol Hill and it was pretty good. I don't know why but during this trip Jerika and I ate our fair share of chicken strips. I guess because we knew they were safe and wouldn't cause either of us stomach issues. There was a lot of construction going on at the Capitol so that is why there is so much scaffolding in all of the pictures. During the tour our guide left us for a while to got listed to Congress. Paul Ryan opened the session and then he left, so we did get to see him for a bit. When we went into the session, they took our cell phones and other devices and we were not allowed to have them at all. After the Capitol we went to the Metro to head over to the Pentagon for our tour there. It was very interesting and actually pretty fun. I was just glad Amanda is from there and had ridden public transportation before so I let her figure out all of the particulars. We arrived without incident at the PENTAGON on time, yeah!! The metro dropped us off at pretty much the front door of where we needed to go, so we didn't get an actual picture of the outside of the Pentagon. When we got there they of course checked all of our bags we didn't have to wait very long, but we took these fun pictures while we were in the waiting area. When it was time for the tour to start, there were about 12 service men and women that took us in a room and explained all of the rules to us. We had to shut off our phones and couldn't take any pictures. Our tour was led by a Marine and a woman from the Air Force with A LOT of medals and it was really interesting. We didn't get to see any of where the actually work takes place, but we walked the halls while they told us where everything was and all of the details about the building. They also took us to where the plane hit the building on 9/11 and they also have a memorial set up for those that were killed that day. I didn't think I would get emotional but it was pretty touching to think about what happened there that day.
After we were done there, we hopped on the metro again and headed to Arlington Cemetery, and talk about emotional, that was quite the eye opener. The thousands and thousands of headstones and to think all of the those people served our country, I don't even know how to put it into words. One of the things I decided while we were in DC was that it was worth extra money payment for transportation. We paid $12 to take the bus (train) tour and it took us to the tomb of the unknown soldier. When we got off the train at the tomb, they were actually taking down the flag and we were able to watch that and then we were able to watch the changing of the guard also. I am so glad I have pictures, because it was another event that I have a hard time putting into words. After we were done there we went back to the Welcome Center and we were able to get on another bus to Amanda's grandparent's graves. Jerika and I stayed on the bus while they went to visit it, because it was getting late and we wanted the bus driver to wait for us before going off duty because it was a long walk back to the Metro. We got back onto the metro and went to the station closest to Amanda's parents house and they came to pick us up and we went back to their house and had dinner, which was amazing. Brenda is really an awesome cook and was so accommodating the entire time. We were so ready for bed that night, we decided we would sleep in a little the next morning to catch up on a little of our sleep and since we didn't have any tours scheduled for that day it worked great.
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