Sunday, July 27, 2008

Written by: Brian and Bryan's(my nephew) emails (part 1)

Quick Recap to D.C.

The trip to DC was great but it was more personal for us seeing our friends and family.

Here is a bullet list of what we did leading up to our arrival in Washington D.C.

-The drive through Moab, Utah and Arches National Park was beautiful

-Arrived in Denver and had wedding reception hosted by our friends Jan and Len. THANK YOU!

-Bryan and I hiked to over 12,000 feet at Rocky Mountain National Park

-18 hour drive from Denver to Chicago was grueling, Nebraska is truly a boring state

-Spent 3 days catching up with my grandma in Chicago

-My mom had a wedding reception for us in Sandwich, IL and made some great traditional Polish food. Thanks!

-Drove down to Atlanta through the beautiful Smokey Mountains

-Spent 3 days with my cousin Keith and his wonderful family

-Headed to Washington D.C. on July 4th

The Capitol:

We arrived at our friends house outside of DC around 5:00 on July 4th and had a nice barbecue. That evening we headed into the city to see the most amazing display of fireworks I had ever seen. We headed home for some much needed sleep, tomorrow was the start of our Washington D.C. site seeing tour.

Taxation without Representation, the phrase that led to the revolutionary war and ultimately to independence of America. So it seems a little strange when the first day in Washington D.C. (from now on D.C.) I see the license plate motto“Taxation without Representation” on all the cars in D.C.

Dan, our friend that we were staying with in D.C. and resident expert on most historical matters informed us of the history of the motto. Washington D.C. is not a state but a district of the Untied States that house all three Federal branches of the Federal government. It has a population of around 600,000 thousand people but they have no representation in the Senate and they have a non-voting member in the House of Representatives. The residents of D.C. did not even have voting rights until 1961 when the 23 amendment gave them 3 electoral votes.

The reason for our trip across the country was to take my 14 year old nephew, Bryan, to see the nations capitol of which he had just completed his 8th grade studies on. It was one of his dreams to see Washington D.C. and we thought it would be a great educational opportunity. Please enjoy his emails home each day reflecting on the days activities.

Day 1: Today has been a great day. I went and saw 4 things except one of them did not work out.

First we went to go see Fords theater where Abraham Lincoln was assassinated which was like my #1 thing to see except it was closed which really stunk but it was ok. It will not open until 2009.

Next we went to go see the Library of Congress which had every book ever published in the world and also we saw the library of Thomas Jefferson which was really big.

Third we went to see the Lincoln Memorial which was fantastic because i got to see where Forest Gump gave his speech and ran through the reflecting pool which was really cool.

Last we went to see the Vietnam Memorial which was fascinating to learn about and also made me think of grandpa (who was in Vietnam)

Stay tuned for part two of our 5 day trip to D.C. 

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