Next stop: Washington! How could we not visit the capital? Not see the White House?

And not get into an adventure again???

We had tickets for 3 AM, and as we approached the greyhound station, we saw a crowd of people at the entrance... what was going on? They weren't letting anyone in, even those with tickets! They said all trips were canceled and no one knew when the buses would run. Wonderful!!! Later, we found out that the next bus to Washington wouldn't be until 7 AM... no one wanted to wait that long! And the students started coming up with all sorts of ideas... the most sensible one was just to head home! Get some sleep! But no, everyone wanted to go to the capital!))

And then, Svetik remembered being advised to travel via Chinatown bus lines because they are much cheaper... like twice as cheap!! Our non-refundable greyhound tickets cost $79 each... while the Chinatown tickets were $40. See the difference??

We decided that no matter what, we would return the non-refundable tickets, go to Chinatown, catch the next bus to Washington, and see the White House and all the other sights!!

And we did it! We got our money back for the tickets with almost no problems... well, we had to run around for some signatures.

And here we were, roaming the streets of Manhattan in search of the Chinese bus office. It was already 5 AM... We saw a bus, the address seemed to match what we were looking for, and, oh miracle, the bus was indeed going to Washington and would leave in 10 minutes!! But hold your horses! It left 40 minutes later and, as it turned out, it was going to Baltimore! No, we didn't end up in Baltimore; we accidentally overheard where the bus was going and managed to switch to the right one)) actually, the company employees themselves didn't know where the buses were going and tried to put us on every single one!

But in the end, we arrived in Washington, anticipating a whole day of walking!)))

First things first, of course, free city maps! After assessing the scale of the city, or rather the center and the sights we wanted to see, a long walking tour was planned, since everything we needed to see was close by, and in 5 hours we managed to see everything we came for!)) Funny, the White House, the Capitol, a life-size cutout of Obama, the Library of Congress, the Supreme Court building, a life-size cutout of McCain, the WWII Memorial... Yes, we also stumbled upon some open-air concert, but we never figured out who was singing, but the people were kind of strange, many were standing with their hands raised or in some symbolic poses... felt like a religious event?

It was a sunny day, we had 3 cameras, and we concluded that Washington is a big village, don't know why)) But I would love to go again!