In November I decided to visit my friend from the Orientations in her new home Washington D.C.. But with all the flight connections I ended up only having 1 1/2 days in DC.
11.November 2016
I got up at 2 am to make my way to the airport. Because I had to catch a flight to Charlotte, where I stopped on my way to Baltimore. The flight from PHX to CLT was really nice, we did have some turbulences, but all together is was really nice. All the movies and TV-shows they offered on gogoinflight entertainment were free and that was really nice. So I ended up watching Eddie The Eagle. But they also offered movies like Bad Moms, Me Before You, Central Intelligence, Mike and Dave and other pretty new movies. Since I missed the first time they walked through with drinks and snacks, the only thing I got was a cup of water and no snack.
In Charlotte I spent my whole time at the gate. This is one of the nicest airports I have seen so far. They had a lot of different stores and restaurants and it really looks nice with some trees for decoration. Just 1 hour before my boarding was supposed to start one gate after the other made an announcement, that the computer system shut down and they are not able to do anything. I got lucky before it actually effected and I got on my flight on time. This time the flight was not full, so the middle seat in my row stayed empty. The flight was pretty short (52 min), but a really nice and quiet one. I even got a real drink 
and a little snack.
Once I arrived in Baltimore, I made my way to the public transportation and so I got to do my first train ride in the USA. It was pretty funny, but it also reminded me a lot about home. I was really excited about all those fall trees and their wonderful colors. In New Carollton I got off the train and met with Kathrin (she is my aupair buddy from day 1 and she just moved to DC). After we left all my stuff at her place we made our way to Washington D.C. (by now it was around 5pm).
We took the metro to Metro Center and from there we walked to the White House. Apperantly they are getting stuff ready for the inauguration of the new president at frontside of the White House, so we didnt really get good pictures… (It will be like this until January) So we went around and had a way better view there. We then made our way to the Washington Monument, after some pictures we headed over to the World War II Memorial. And our last stop on this side of the Washington Monument was the Reflection Pool and the Abraham Lincoln Memorial. Then we walked the way back and even farther to get to the Capitol and to take some pictures there.
We then decided to make our way home and walked to nearest metro station and stopped at the cheesecake factory for our dinner, before it was time to go home and jump into the bed. Since we walked about 22.500 steps that day our legs hurt and we fell asleep pretty quick.
12.November 2016
We left the house around 9am and decided to do exactly the same thing like on Friday. So we headed to Metro Center, but this time we went directly to the back of the White House and took some pictures. There were even a few high school and college students protesting against Trump and his presidency. On our way to the Reflection Pool we stopped at the Washington Monument to take some pictures at daylight and we even got to see a little ceremony for one of the survivors of Pearl Harbor at the world War II memorial (it was veterans day on Friday).
We then made our way to Abraham Lincoln again and after we took enough pictures, we rented a bike from Capitol Bikeshare and rode the bike along the national mall and stopped at few more memorials (like the Korean War Memorial or the Jefferson memorial). After riding the bike for one hour, we returned at the Air & Space Museum and went inside, because I’ve heard of a friend of mine about their astronaut ice cream. So it is dried, warm ice cream. It still tastes like Ice Cream, but it doesnt feel like it.
After we made a quick stop on both sides of the Capitol, we stopped by the Surpreme Court (and some other nice old buildings), before we went back home to go to ALDI (for all the not german/austrian aupairs: Aldi is a grocery store in Austria and Germany). They are selling a lot of german products at the moment and it was like heaven for me. I was smiling all over my face and I was just so happy, to see something I know and if there would’ve been no flight back to Phoenix I would’ve probably spent a lot more money than I did.
For dinner we ate a cheesecake we bought earlier that day at the Cheesecake Factory and some of our candy from Aldi. And then it was time to pack my stuff, because I had to catch my early morning flight.
13.November 2016
We got up 4am and left the house to get to the airport. We arrived there with a lot of time to spare, I had no rush to get to the airplane. I waited at the gate until boarding and just when I got on the plane and sat down on my seat, I got a message, that our flight would be delayed for 40min. So we asked a flight attendant and she said there is gonna be no delay, she doesn’t know why we got that message. We then really started to pull out of our parking location, but just a few minutes of driving around, the engines slowed down and turned off. The pilot then told us, that there no headwinds, so we would be an hour earlier in Phoenix and thats why we have to wait here for 30min now… So we waited there and at 7:20 we finally took off. The flight was pretty calm and we got our complimentary drinks and snacks pretty fast. The snack was one of my favorite European cookies. We even got a second drink and I really enjoyed the flight and the entertaining (I decided to watch Let’s Be Cops). Despite our 40min delay we arrived 40 early and so we had to wait another 15-20min in Phoenix, because our gate was still occupied.
American Airlines
As most of the time, I enjoyed pretty much all of my flights. I was just not really happy about my drink/snack that I missed on the first flight to Charlotte, because I think they should still be able to give you a snack and drink even if you are asleep… My snack on the flight to Phoenix turned out to be my favorit coffee cookie from home (perfect end for this weekend).
Capitol Bikeshare
You have to take a membership which is 8$ for 24 hours. The first 30minutes are free, you pay 2$ for 31min-89min and then you pay 8$ for every additional 30min. It is a really nice way to explore DC and it is a lot faster than walking. Since most of the sights are kind of close by each other. So I can totally recommend this company, they have the bikes stations all over the city. So this is for sure a nice and quick way to see DC.
Kathi's Travel Adventure 