Washington DC

Weekend in DC visiting the sites from picture books!

I traveled to DC for the weekend to stay with Janey, Terry's sister in law. On the saturday I spent the say in the centre of DC seeing all the sights! I started in the National Art Gallery and then did a long circuit around the mall. Walked up to the State Capitol then down the other side of the lawn. Had my picture taken in front of the Washington Monument - that stereotypical image of America. It was the windiest day EVER and so so cold! After that i headed to the American History museum for some lunch and felt like everyone was looking at me because i was by myself. If anything, this trip made me realize how much i want someone to share my experiences with because its not fun enjoying things by yourself. 

After that i walked up to the White House and around the outside of it. The actual house is way smaller than i expected! It is definitely no Buckingham Palace!! I then headed up to the Lincoln Memorial and the Vietnam Memorial. It was all amazing and very cereal actually being stood in front of these monuments which i have studied for so long. 

That evening we went to the Kennedy Centre to watch a ballet performance. It was pretty special and lovely to experience. It was a recital which i had never experienced before. 

On the Sunday I went to Mount Vernon, George Washington's plantation and had a tour around his house and grounds. In the afternoon I mooched around the shops in Alexandria. It was comforting to hear so many British voices here. In Alabama I get over the top excited if I meet someone who is British (which has only happened twice) that i have not already met. In Alexandria every other group had an English accent in it and some of the shop owners were British. They even had mothers day things in the shops even though America doesn't have theirs until April! It was a beaut of a day and the Potomac River looked fabulous in the sunshine. 

On the monday I had a meeting with the photographic editor at the National Geographic Magazine in central DC. I felt very lucky to be able to have that opportunity and be shown around their offices and learn how everything functions. Overall DC was definitely a worth while trip and I seemed to pack in everything i wanted to do! I was very very tired in the week to come though because i had totally worn myself out.

Selma - Civil Rights Jubilee March

March 4th 2012 

March Over The Edmund Pettus Bridge

This was definitely a day i will remember for the rest of my life! It started very slowly and slightly traumatic. This was my birthday weekend and we had a tornado warning in Tuscaloosa on my actual birthday, therefore all my celebrations had to wait until the Saturday night. So the morning after I was a little worse for ware and was the only one insured to drive the car so we had to wait until the afternoon to drive to Selma. Five of us went on the trip, me, Anika, Angela, Amy and Sophie! None of us knew what to expect, all we knew was that a jubilee march was taking place across the Edmund Pettus bridge which had taken place every year since the march took place in the 60s. The atmosphere was very friendly and even though we were the extreme minority, no body seemed to be looking at us and we slowly just slid into the crowd. There were thousands of people congregating at the Martin Luther King Church to watch the pre march rally. We saw Martin Luther King III speak and Jessie Jackson which was amazing. Its a bit cereal to stand and watch these people speak in person when, for the last two years, I have been studying them through textbooks and journals in Leicester! 

The actual march took place after the rally and we walked the route that the original marchers took through down town Selma. The mixture of people that were there was pretty amazing. It was not just black people, there were white, young and old, Mexican, Asian, men and women. All people walking through the streets together. We turned the corner onto the straight road towards the Edmund Pettus Bridge and I nearly cried. It was a bit like being inside a history book. We walked up and over the bridge with everyone and spent a while taking in the atmosphere then walked back to the main street. There was a festival type celebration in the centre and it really felt like we were in a different country! The vivid images, I will remember forever.