USA 2016: Washington & Great Falls National Park

After visiting New York, we took a rental car to the capital of the United States, Washington, D.C. There, we took a long walk from the hotel to the White House. President Obama's house looked great. Squirrels were also present there. What we didn't find were any trash cans, which seemed to have all been removed as a precaution against terrorist attacks. After having previously encountered a Falun Gong protest at the Chinese consulate in New York, there was another protest against the atomic bomb here. After the White House, we continued walking towards the National Mall, a large park with various monuments, museums, and the Capitol. The World War II memorial was quite impressive. At the bottom of the steps near the statue of Abraham Lincoln, the first president of the United States, some young people on bicycles were doing some serious stunts. We also encountered some Amish women. It turned out to be quite a strenuous walk, especially because the temperature was in the high 30s, almost 40 degrees Celsius. We finally arrived back at the hotel soaked with sweat and ordered some Chinese food. That was quite an interesting experience, ordering in English over the phone with Chinese people who were hard to understand and didn't speak English very well themselves. But in the end, it all worked out well :) Another day, we went to Great Falls National Park near Washington. This park has a nice collection of waterfalls. So we climbed some rocks and I took some more pictures. A few daredevils were also canoeing on the Potomac River. One, after having already covered the worst of the falls, fell over. He couldn't turn himself back up, which quickly made things tense. Eventually, he managed to free himself completely from the canoe and floated down the river behind it, so he could reach the shore a bit further away. That could have ended differently...