DC came knocking at the door, and I was ready with open arms, wasn’t going to let this opportunity slide.

We (my aunt, cousin and I) had an amazing road trip to DC from New York.  We got to DC very late at night. Tired as we were, we had something to eat and proceeded straight to bed. That following day was more or less of a lazy day just to rejuvenate and chit chat. We therefore set for our tour the following day.

The best way to enjoy the tour was through walking. We quickly made our way to Pennsylvania Avenue NW. There stood the magnificent White House. There were gobs of people, probably my fellow world trotters. The security was highly beefed up however people could still take pictures as close as to the main gate of the White House. I did not waste any second, I joined the others in taking the numerous selfies and finally find the perfect one to put up on my various social media platforms, hehe. There were quite a handful of activities taking place. Not so far from where I was standing was there was an adroit man in violin. His performance was just spectacular.

The Martin Luther King Jr Memorial was our next stop. It was categorized by one gigantic granite sculpture of the late Martin Luther King Jr. It was then surrounded by some of his famous sayings that were quoted on the stone wall.

True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice – Martin Luther King Jr, 1958.

A few stones away was the Franklin Delano Roosevelt memorial. He served as the 32^nd President of the United States of America. Similar to the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial, it hard his famous quotes engraved on the stone walls. Interestingly it had a small beautiful waterfall. As I walked around, I also noticed some walls had ancient language engraved on them including faces of people.

A few meters away was the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. The late Thomas Jefferson served as the 3^rd President of the United States of America. It serves as the site of many annual events and ceremonies including memorial exercises, an Easter sunrise service and the National Cherry Blossom Festival. The memorial, stands as a symbol of liberty. Interestingly, I found out that it was designed as a smaller version of the Roman Pantheon with marble steps and monumental Ionic columns; its interior holds a bronze statue of Jefferson and the walls are inlaid with excerpts from his letters, speeches and the Declaration of Independence.

At this point you would have thought my feet were killing me and wanted to go home, contrary to that I wanted to see more. It was already night fall hence decided to do one more and call it a night. It could not be any other place other than World War II Memorial, which honors the spirit and sacrifice of the 16 million men and women who served overseas and the more than 400,000 that perished, opened to the public in April 2004. It has 56 granite pillars each engraved the affected state in the war. In the middle there is a pool that has water fountains pouring water in it.

I did not regret visiting this place at night. It had numerous lights which just added to the breath taking view. Soon I had my aunt say, “You need to wait for me by the road I go get the car,” my heart was willing to continue but my feet could not take it anymore. The thing that impressed me most was how these monuments were well maintained. The other thing was that anyone could visit them as there was no entry fee. It is just like walking on the streets. This provides a great opportunity for anyone to learn the history of the country.

I got home exhausted but had a great feeling of contention inside.