Day 4 - Leaving for Washington

So, today the actual road trip began! Our first surprise was that the car we got from the rental place looked nothing like the picture on the website. What a shame eh? NOT! Look below for a snapshot of our little blue beauty. We were offered to upgrade to a bigger car, but who would ever want to swap this!? OK, so it's Japanese and not American but we've come to love it already.


The trip began slowly with a huge queue throughout most of the state of New Jersey. For about two hours and about 80 kilometers, we were more or less stuck. Things cleared up just before Philadelphia though and from then on it was smooth going. No need for parents to worry about driving. The worst bit was getting out of Manhattan and New York, otherwise it's pretty much like driving in Sweden - except you get 4 lanes in each direction on the motorway :D

We tried out the interstate highway 95. Interstate highways are toll roads, meaning you pay for certain stretches of road. They're very effective in terms of getting from one place to another fast, but oh so boring. Covered by trees on both sides (probably planted to reduce the noise from the road), you can't see any of the landscape you're going through. So much for our tour of the 'Garden State'! As soon as we're out of Washington, we'll try to head for the smaller roads.

The petrol is stupidly cheap. Here's a fact for the Swedes:
-En liter bensin kostar 5.23. Allvarligt!

To all you New York fans out there... I'm sorry, but after spending 3 hours in Washington, I'm in love and wouldn't trade it for NY for anything. Washington is clean, suave and awesome in every way. At least the bits we've seen so far. Mattias managed to get us a top notch hotel at a very low cost. For as little as we paid for our midget size room in NY, we now have a bed you have to climb to get into. It's also on a street overlooking Capitol Hill and only a couple of minutes walk away from it and the rest of the Mall. This hotel also has a bible in the drawer. Plus points for that!

After checking into the hotel, we strolled down to Capitol Hill where we were met by a huge crowd and the sound of singing. We'd walked right into the strangest thing: a dress rehearsal for the July 4th celebration! Unfortunately we'd missed Aretha Franklin singing the national anthem, but heard other celebrities like Natasha Bedingfield, Sesame Street and a vocal group which I can't remember the name of :/

We found out that they were recording it all for TV in case the real July 4th celebrations were spoiled by rain. Isn't that just so odd? :D We'll be there tomorrow as well though. There's fireworks set up all around the reflecting pool - it sounds amazing. Here's a shot of the Capitolium - night sky and lit by huge stadium lights.

I'm not sure when the next post will be, so if you don't hear from us for a few days, don't worry. The day after tomorrow we'll head south towards Florida. It may be that we have no connection before reaching Orlando. But we're fine, honestly :)