A nicer day today here in the Baltimore/Washington area....same temperature, but no rain....it's actually warmer in Ottawa today than here...so, for the first time since I entered the US, all you Ottawa people can actually laugh at me for being in the colder place today....I guess 12 out of 13 days ain't bad... :-)
We're just sitting around right now trying to figure out what we want to do because we saw everything we needed to see in Washington yesterday....we walked around for about nine hours yesterday....parked the car at around 2:30 and got back to it just before midnight as we saw absolutely everything....my feet were absolutely pulsing towards the end of the walk, but with the views that we were able to get of all the monuments, I can handle a little bit of a pain for an hour or so...
Talk about a stark contrast from the look of the capital of the United States to the capital of Canada...I don't know how much money is put into the upkeep of the city's look every year, but the city of Washington is just beautiful with momuments and statues at every turn....the three of us were trying to think of statues or monuments in Ottawa and we could only come up with a couple...
However, with the beauty comes the annoyance of security at every turn....Until it got dark and it became more of a positive, the police and security prescence in the city is just unreal and made me feel uneasy for a couple of hours before I got used to it....A perfect example is the security check that we received just at the parking lot downtown....When we drove up to the ramp, the security guard asked for all of our ID's and grazed the metal detector up and down the car....then just to enter the building to get back to the car, we needed to present our ID's again and then had to empty our pockets and go through a metal detector much like you would at an airport....like I said, I got used to it after a couple of hours, but it was a big shock to the system when I first got here...
I have to get this off my chest and I'm assuming that it's not the same back home, but the amount of fear-mongering that occurs on local and national TV here is just insane....everywhere you turn here over the last couple of days, I've seen nothing but news about the swine flu...alerts here and school closings there....there are people walking around with masks now apparently.....I don't want to make light of the situation, but the amount of panic that the media here is forcing upon the residents and viewers is just sickening...
Alright, I can fully breathe again.....Anyways, going to see the Nats again tonight as they take on the St. Louis Cardinals....the Nationals are the worst team in the majors and the Cards are the best team in baseball going into action this afternoon.....poor Nationals, they just can't catch a break....lol
This will be stadium number 6 already....as Chris and I have been saying, the days are starting to become a blur and everything is really just one big day now....it's a great feeling to get up every day and just decide what we want to do without any pressures....Time flies when you're having fun.... :-)
The Farj (Ian Mendes) is in town to cover the Caps/Pens series starting on Saturday, so I'm gonna try to catch up with him before I head off to Pittsburgh for the Pirates game tomorrow night....
We're just sitting around right now trying to figure out what we want to do because we saw everything we needed to see in Washington yesterday....we walked around for about nine hours yesterday....parked the car at around 2:30 and got back to it just before midnight as we saw absolutely everything....my feet were absolutely pulsing towards the end of the walk, but with the views that we were able to get of all the monuments, I can handle a little bit of a pain for an hour or so...
Talk about a stark contrast from the look of the capital of the United States to the capital of Canada...I don't know how much money is put into the upkeep of the city's look every year, but the city of Washington is just beautiful with momuments and statues at every turn....the three of us were trying to think of statues or monuments in Ottawa and we could only come up with a couple...
However, with the beauty comes the annoyance of security at every turn....Until it got dark and it became more of a positive, the police and security prescence in the city is just unreal and made me feel uneasy for a couple of hours before I got used to it....A perfect example is the security check that we received just at the parking lot downtown....When we drove up to the ramp, the security guard asked for all of our ID's and grazed the metal detector up and down the car....then just to enter the building to get back to the car, we needed to present our ID's again and then had to empty our pockets and go through a metal detector much like you would at an airport....like I said, I got used to it after a couple of hours, but it was a big shock to the system when I first got here...
I have to get this off my chest and I'm assuming that it's not the same back home, but the amount of fear-mongering that occurs on local and national TV here is just insane....everywhere you turn here over the last couple of days, I've seen nothing but news about the swine flu...alerts here and school closings there....there are people walking around with masks now apparently.....I don't want to make light of the situation, but the amount of panic that the media here is forcing upon the residents and viewers is just sickening...
Alright, I can fully breathe again.....Anyways, going to see the Nats again tonight as they take on the St. Louis Cardinals....the Nationals are the worst team in the majors and the Cards are the best team in baseball going into action this afternoon.....poor Nationals, they just can't catch a break....lol
This will be stadium number 6 already....as Chris and I have been saying, the days are starting to become a blur and everything is really just one big day now....it's a great feeling to get up every day and just decide what we want to do without any pressures....Time flies when you're having fun.... :-)
The Farj (Ian Mendes) is in town to cover the Caps/Pens series starting on Saturday, so I'm gonna try to catch up with him before I head off to Pittsburgh for the Pirates game tomorrow night....
