Tuesday 21st July was our last day in Washington. We started off by heading out to see The White House. Tours still operate around The White House but have to in at least groups of 10 and organised with your congressman. We had tried the UK Embassy in Washington but they still told us we had to be in a party of 10. So we had to settle for a view from the outside. Yet again it did not disappoint.

We then headed down to the White House visitors centre. Here we were able to watch a film on the history of the White House and see some of the artefacts from the house. A couple of interesting facts are that two of the presidents had bowling alleys in the White House and there was a swimming pool until Richard Nixon ordered it to be filled in. It is now the White House pressroom. I have a feeling that we will be watching The West Wing when we get home. The visitors centre was good to visit but slightly disappointing.

Our next stop was the Museum of American History, an other Smithsonian museum. Here we saw Dorothy’s Ruby slippers and Mohammed Ali’s boxing gloves. I think the most impressive thing I saw was the flag that inspired the Star Spangled Banner. It had fifteen stars and fifteen strips as US was originally only fifteen states. The flag now has fifty stars for the fifty states and thirteen strips for the thirteen original states.

Matthew and I were tired so we headed back to the hotel, while Terry and Eleanor headed over to the National Geographic exhibition space. They exhibit photos in their building and it is free. Eleanor got a photo in the style of the cover of the magazine.