Washington D.C. calling

Monika from the Academy of Educational Development (organisation coordinating our program in DC) picked us and a Latvian, coming from a choire trip in Vienna, up and a Supershuttle bus took us to the hotel. Other Latvians had their reservations cancelled and the missed their flight from Munich. Hopefully, we'll see them today.



Monika is a very nice young lady, has her roots in Poland. On our way to the city she suggested us all sorts of places to eat and sights to see. She gave us our pocket money for the DC and a metrto card. The system seems to be easy. At least the metro plan seemed to be almost identical, but a smaller version of the Tube map in London. Looking out of the window, I was amazed, that everything seemed quite European: the cars, the trees, no skyscrapers. The city is only 9 square miles and has about 600 000 habitants. Houses are all in beige, brown or grey shades, a lot of green, everything is pretty.



After refreshing, we met up with the Estonians and the poor single Latvian, that had to listen to Estonian for the whole evening. We started to search for an organic food market called Whole Food Market, that Monika suggested. It was supposed to be a few blocks away from our hotel. On the first corner already we had a chance to experience the friendlyness of the Americans. A boy on the street started to giving us directions and we finally found the market. Best grocery shop I've ever seen for shore. They have everything organic: fruits, ready-made healthy food, smoothies, cookies, marshmellows, just everything. (Neti, I'll bring you something delicious from that shop ;).) We ate outside of the market, on the terrace and of course, made our first Starbucks visiting. We headed towards the Mall. No it isn't a shopping centre for those, who didn't know. It is the main street, that has all the Smithsonian museums. On our way we saw some penthouse parties, the Bank of America, the Washington Monument, the Capitol, the White House. The city is amazingly beautiful, friendly and quiete, meaning not that crowded-noisy metropol that I was expecting from the USA. We walked back to our hotel. Chatted with the Latvian and just fell asleep between the white pillows.



The amazing trip has really now started and I'm already nervous about the program ending too soon, because I really like the city so far. We'll see what happens today. I'll try to blog every day.