So, it was a beautiful day and we got to the airport early to catch the flight to Washington - Baltimore area. We booked in, cued up for the ridiculous security check (shoes and socks off - I was wearing jandels but still had to take them off) and went to our gate for departure. 
A United employee said over the system that the flight was delayed - no reason given. 30mins later she then said flight was canceled because the pilot didn't turn up! So to cut a long story short we cued for about 4 hours to get our complimentary hotel and food pass and re-booked our flight for the next day to Dullus International - 1 hour or so from our hotel out of Washington - near Arundel Mills. The flight across to Washington was uneventful - good views of the Grand Canyon etc (see pic).
A United employee said over the system that the flight was delayed - no reason given. 30mins later she then said flight was canceled because the pilot didn't turn up! So to cut a long story short we cued for about 4 hours to get our complimentary hotel and food pass and re-booked our flight for the next day to Dullus International - 1 hour or so from our hotel out of Washington - near Arundel Mills. The flight across to Washington was uneventful - good views of the Grand Canyon etc (see pic).Our hotel was right beside a 2 mile long shopping (outlet) mall called Arundel Mills . Crazy stuff! One of the biggest, if not the biggest in the States. It took me 4 hours to walk from one end to the other, stopping at a few shops on the way through - electronic stores bigger than some malls back home; shoe stores with enough shoes to fit the towns folk of a town the size of Ashburton; a 24 cinema complex with giant pillars at the entrance; clothing stores where it was cheaper to buy bulk than a single item (so as to get rid of their stock). It was massive, far too big.
We had a free upgrade on our car rental. The guy at the Hertz counter - a young boy racer type - upgraded us from a Toyota corolla to a brand spanker V6 Pontiac G6 GT. 'Nice car, you will have a lot of power' - were his words. It had an eight speaker sound system with subwoofer, electric and heated everything including seats and mirrors; a hologram of the speedo etc that displayed on the front windscreen when you drove! We found a Baltimore hip-hop station 92q with DJ K-Swift, turned up the eight speaker sound system and drove around the car park at Arundel Mills;)
Miriam had to work for a few days near Washington, so on one of the days I had the chance to go to the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. I've never been into planes that much and wouldn't know much about them but the large hanger full of planes and the space shuttle Enterprize was unreal. You can check out some photos at flickr . I also made it to the Air & Space Museum in Washington - watched a Red Tag Fighter Pilot movie on the iMax cinema - pretty cool, picture was good (except for bugs running across the lens), sound amazing, film crap.We (including Miriam's boss and wife) went to an ice hockey game on the Wednesday night.
It was a nothing match in terms of the NHL competition - Washington vs Florida of all places - but it was our first. You can see why they wear all that protective gear as some of the hits were big - we were up near the back and could still hear the shoulder charges against the wall. The speed of the game was amazing - Washington won 1-0. I will have to learn how to ice skate on the canal in Ottawa.
It was a nothing match in terms of the NHL competition - Washington vs Florida of all places - but it was our first. You can see why they wear all that protective gear as some of the hits were big - we were up near the back and could still hear the shoulder charges against the wall. The speed of the game was amazing - Washington won 1-0. I will have to learn how to ice skate on the canal in Ottawa.Next day we tried to do the Smithsonian Institute Museums in the National Mall. However it was Spring break and really not a good time to be visiting - heaps of people and loud ones at that! All we could manage was the Natural History Museum. Very cool Museum - recommend it, just not around school holidays. In the pre-historic section, there was an archaeologist working on a dinosaur bone dated back 120 million years - I took a photo but the '120 million years' part was blocked from view. We also saw (un-related to bones) the worlds largest diamond - the 'Hope Diamond'.
That day in Washngton was freezing - which was going to be a common theme as we headed north to Ottawa...
1 comment:
Good words.
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