Capitol idea madam

"Please keep the noise down when on your phone, nobody wants to hear about your Saturday night. Except me."

Ooga booga boo. So, right before I returned to this god-forsaken island, I took full advantage of the continent I was on and took a little trip to somewhere I had wanted to visit the entire year, Washington, DC, in that big old United States of American't. Thanks to some incredibly cheap bus tickets and a gap before D-day, I spent two days in DC and half a day in Philadelphia, with some pretty nasty semi-conscious travel thrown in either side. Here is what I done, a couple of weeks back.

After seeing one of the worst films of this year, Salt, with my mate Dave (it made 24 look sensible), I boarded a Megabus bound for Philadelphia on the Friday night on my todd. Leaving Toronto, I decided that this double decker bus, with air-conditioning, free WiFi and decent leg room was a pretty good deal for 15 bucks or whatever stupid amount of cash I paid for the pleasure. A few hours later at the border, I sort of changed my mind. Firstly, we waited two ruddy hours just to get seen by the border guards, who were surprisingly lax compared to the comparative dressing down I got last time. But then once that was done, one dumbass who was held longer than everyone else decides not to tell the driver he's back on the bus, so we wait around for another half an hour before the driver realises. Once we're through, we stop off at a service station. After that, third fuck-up; the driver decides to get lost. Total jokes. Why the hell he isn't equipped with GPS and has to go back to the same service station three times to ask different taxi drivers, I have no idea. So, a pretty gruelling 10-hour journey turns into a 14-hour journey and the bus arrives in Philly at lunchtime... in possibly the hottest weather I've ever experienced.

The blast of heat that hit me was totally horrific, but not even the worst I'd experience during the journey. Luckily I didn't have to hang around long and jumped onto the next bus to DC, despite not having the right ticket. Hurrah! Another few hours, half-broken air conditioning and I was in the place where shit goes down. Y'know all that stuff with the men and whatnot and those TV shows. Yeah? In conclusion, Megabus are bad shitheads. But I guess you get what you pay for.

Washington, D.C.

Welcome to Washington, where it's 40 degrees Celsius before the humidity kicks in, everything is white and there's a ridiculous amount of museums. That'd be my slogan if I was a PR man for that place, tourism would shoot up mate. Yes, the heat. Oh my fucking god. When I arrived, I fumbled around a little bit trying to look for my hostel despite it being just up the road and by the time I reached the place, I was sweating like a really bad joke. I dumped my stuff in my room and went in the search of liquid, which seems to be a problem in DC, due to a worrying lack of convenience stores. I found a Starbucks, hobbled back to the hostel, contemplated the ridiculousness of the heat for a while, did another trip to a supermarket and came back exhausted. I then had an extreme sit down for a good few hours whilst I waited for it to get a bit cooler in the evening, which it did... by about two degrees.

Lurching out of the door at about seven, I headed in the general direction of all those buildings. About half an hour later, I turned on tourist mode, as I snapped away at a multitude of places I'd seen a billion times before on TV and in movies. The Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, Capitol Building.. it was all present and correct and I wandered around the National Mall gawping to the max. That whole area is like one huge outdoor museum, transported straight from Ancient Greece or Rome and to say it's impressive would be an understatement. My enthusiasm was slightly dampened by the amount of American Boyscouts clogging up my monuments (apparently there was some kind of jamboree with every Boyscout ever attending, yapping about fuggin' Starcraft II in their Texan accents), but being down there was cool and it's definitely worth seeing, regardless of how proud of being American you are (and obviously I'm not at all.. cos I'm not.. yagetme..). Seeing Honest Abe on his seat was particularly spesh.

Later, darkness approached and with enough monuments taken in, 28 empty bottles of liquid in my bag and some totally evil blisters forming on my feet, I headed back up to the hostel, with the really quite menacing Washington Monument staring down at me with it's evil red eyes.

The next day I did what I do best and had a quality lie in and then headed back out into the furnace after slapping on six month's worth of sunblock. My plan was to hit as many air-conned museums as I could until it got cooler and then try and see what I missed the previous day. The first one I hit was the Air and Space Museum, which had some cool war stuff, but I didn't think much to the space side. I did however give into drilled-in temptations and watch Hubble 3D on IMAX, because it seemed like the right thing to do and that was pretty impressive. Space is pretty cool after all. After that, I walked through a very strange sculpture park and into the next museum, The Natural History one. Not much to say on this one either, a lot of stuffed animals really. Next, which was The American History museum. This was more like it. Abraham Lincoln's hat! A cool museum, enough said.

It was finally getting cooler after this, so I headed to the Holocaust Museum which I'd heard some good things about, but they had no passes left and were closing soon, so I instead carried on the march. I traipsed around the Easter Basin having a shufty at the Jefferson Memorial (the water purifier place for all you Fallout 3 dorks) and the Roosevelt Memorial and then headed back uptown to the main man's place, The White House. Here I found some Ethiopian blokes shouting at Obama to come out and free a prisoner, some mounted machine guns on the roof and a nice man to take a picture of me whilst I grimaced. Much like seeing the Statue of Liberty in New York, it was kind of surreal seeing the place in real life and another one of those "I've seen it" moments.

I headed back to the hostel as night drew in once again, destroying a burger from an apparently famous joint and headed to bed completely knackered and with my feet literally fucked. There was still things I missed out, like the Pentagon and Arlington Cemetery, but they will have to wait until next time. The next morning, I got up earlier and bought some tacky shit to take back and got on a bus at about lunchtime to Philly. Ultimately, I'm glad I went to DC, I saw a lot of shit and was throughly impressed by the spectacle. Just little things like seeing FBI written on a police car or an actual real life fallout shelter were enough to put a retarded grin on my face. I got the same impression as I do in London, that big boy shit goes down here, which is a world away from where I live now, a village in West Yorkshire where nothing happens. It also made me realise that the States had some pretty impressive historical figures and ideals when it was first found, and monuments to match.. regardless of the monstrosity it may have become in recent times.

Philadelphia, PA.

I got back to Philadelphia mid-afternoon and had about six hours or so to bum around until my bus back to Toronto. With literally a map which showed me where the old city was and a knowledge that there was some old cracked bell, I walked a long way to the old bit. Here, I figured out that the only things worth seeing were the Constitution Hall (where they signed the constitution funnily enough). That was fully booked for the day, so instead I had a look at The Liberty Bell, which is probably the most overrated piece of historical anything ever. I prefer Taco Bell. The Old City was pretty nice and quaint but there wasn't a right lot to look at. The scant remains of Ben Franklin's house wasn't that good Philly, sorry. Everyone has toilets after all.

Eventually, I headed back down the way I came and saw a few pretty cool neighbourhoods on the way. Sadly, I never ate a Philly Cheese Steak (I never really trusted any of the places that did them) or found the steps where Rocky ran up (I was looking at the Town Hall, apparently it was the Courthouse, meh), but eh. I got back to the station, which was a frankly awesome looking really grandiose 1930s-style building, and hung around like a bum for a couple of hours before my bus came. In conclusion, Philly wasn't that interesting and I wouldn't have gone there if it wasn't a stop on the Megabus. Sorry. The journey back was pretty pain-free, especially since it wasn't that busy and the driver knew where he was fucking going this time.

All in all, a very cheap trip and I'm really glad I went to D.C. If I could have changed one thing, I would have definitely brought someone with me, since I didn't have anyone to make lame jokes about the monument looking like a member with. And that's a very sad thing indeed.

Lots of photos on my Facebook gaaahhhhhh!