Washington DC The Capitol

Since our hotel is in the Foggy Bottom District (4km from the Capitol) and we have to be at the Capitol by 10.30am (we have booked the visit for 11am), we have decided to get a taxi to get there

The tour only takes you to two rooms that you can also visit by yourself, but they do tell you about the history and the construction of the Capitol, here below is the replica of the Liberty Statue, which is on the Capitol's top

Here there are the two rooms that you can visit, unfortunately the Rotunda is under restoration (works were carried out last time in 1960), but we still get to see the rest of the pictures and the statues, each state can give 2 statues to stand here (they can be replaced with another statue only after 10 years, of course certain statues will never be removed, like George Washington)

 The white circle in the picture on the top right is indicating the exact center of the city!

We also managed to visit the House of Representatives and the Senate Chamber (we had to queue for this one almost 20 minutes), unfortunately no photos were allowed, but we loved it, I mean we are talking about two of the most important rooms in the world, where not only American issues are discussed, but also International matters that might affect the rest of the world. Here are the tickets!

The President never goes to Senate Chamber, he only goes to the House when he has to perform his yearly speech. As you can imagine we didn't get to see him today :-(

Anyway we had lunch at the Capitol canteen and through a internal tunnel we got to go to the Library of Congress, which in fact is just on the other side of the street

Between all the great staff that the Library holds there is one of the three copies of the Gutenberg Bible

 This is the Capitol from the Library of Congress

Next to the Library of Congress there is the US Supreme Court, which is the very last step of the Justice Machine here in the US, people have to submit a petition and the Court get to choose what issue to discuss. The judges are nine and they stay there until they retire/die, the President get to choose them with the Senate approval. Unfortunately the courtroom was closed, the one that you see below, second picture on the right, is a miniature

Near to the Supreme Court there is the Sewall-Belmont House, which is the headquarter of the National Women's party since 1929 (the party won the right to vote for American women in 1920).

From the Capitol and we have reached Union Station, which really looks like a shopping center

From there we have visited the National Japanese American Memorial, I had no idea that when the WWII started 120.00 Japanese American were interned in special camps... It really came to me as a shock...

Walking around the Capitol we have seen the Ebenezer United Methodist Church, the first black church in Washington to serve Methodist, the Folger Shakespeare Library and the Botanic Garden (seen from Bartholdi Park). Capitol Hill is definitely a very nice area!

We are finally resting a little bit in Union Square, just behind the Capitol, where is located the Ulysses S. Grant Civil War Memorial, in the picture below you can see the Washington Monument

As you can see from our faces we are really tired, so I think we are going back to the hotel by taxi, tomorrow it will be the White House!!! I cannot believe it!