Nonna and Dad-Dad arrive

We have had Nonna and Dad-Dad here for the past week and a half, and we have all very much enjoyed seeing them again. The girls were so excited when they arrived and rushed out the front of our house to greet them in the street.

We spent the first week seeing some of the sights of Washington. Some places we had been to before, such as the Natural History Museum and Mount Vernon, George Washington's home. Others, however, we had not seen. On the Tuesday (October 5) we visited the Supreme Court, the highest court in the US. This is just opposite the Capitol and we can walk there from our house in about 15 minutes. There are 2 lines out the front, one is a queue to watch an entire case (a case usually lasts 40 minutes), the other is the 3 minute queue, where you get to watch 3 minutes of whatever case is going on. We joined the 3 minute line and waited in it for almost one hour! The girls have learned to be quite patient with queues, although an hour did test them! Luckily, they could run around a bit while we waited. When we finally did enter and passed through quite a bit of security we entered the packed courtroom to see the end of a case called Michigan v. Bryant. In each case, each side has 20 minutes to put forward their arguments and they are questioned by the judges. As our case was nearly over, we got to stay in the room longer than 3 minutes, about 10 all together. Basically the lawyer and the judges were debating whether the statement made by a shooting victim describing his assailant was able to be considered 'testimonial', given the circumstances in which he gave these statements (he was in shock, bleeding, in distress and responding to a police officer's questions). It was a bit hard to follow coming in right at the end but it was certainly impressive to see the judges and the courtroom in general. Ella was a bit put our because she could hardly see anything, but Pia seemed to find it interesting and stood up several times to get a better look at the female judges!

The following day we went to the waterfront area of Georgetown and did a cruise on the Potomac River. It was actually really cold that day and quite windy but it was nice to get a view of Washington from the river.

The Washington Memorial and the Lincoln Monument

The Pentagon

The canal that runs through Georgetown

On the Thursday we caught the metro out to Arlington National Cemetery. Finally we had a beautiful day, weather wise, which was good as the cemetery is very large and there are many sections to see.

Firstly we stopped at the grave of President Kennedy, which is very simple yet moving. He is buried next to Jacqui, as well as two of their children who died at birth, or just after. Nearby are his brothers Robert and Edward, also in very simple graves.

The grave of JFK and the eternal flame

We then moved on to the Tomb of the Unknowns. Mum and dad saw the impressive changing of the guard there (I was around the back feeding the girls!)

The tomb of the Unknowns

The house of Robert E. Lee, a famous general in the Civil War, is also at Arlington at the very top of a hill. There are great views over Washington from there. Lee has now had his reputation restored in America, but for a long time he was seen as a traitor because in the Civil War he chose to leave the US Army, which he had served for over 30 years, and side with his native state Virginia and so fight with the Confederate States. His home was taken off him and he was ultimately stripped of his citizenship (this was restored much later by President Ford). Today, his impressive home is being restored inside to how it looked when he lived in it and it is surrounded by the graves of civil war soldiers.

The home of Robert E. Lee

The view from Virginia back to Washington

Arlington is obviously a very sad and reflective place - we saw part of a funeral procession there just as we were leaving, which was very moving, but it is also very beautiful and peaceful.


We finished off the week with a visit to Mount Vernon, which is George Washington's family home. We had visited there before in the summer so this time we got to explore it a little closer and see the gardens and the farm in the autumn, complete with pumpkin patch.



We have just returned from a three day trip exploring some of the civil war battlefields. I will write about this in my next post. Thanks for reading!