Here I am at the start of my trip to Washington DC and Virginia. I’m spending four nights in DC, followed by six nights on a road trip around Virginia – two nights in Front Royal, two in Staunton, and two in Richmond. Along the way I hope to do the following, at least: visit the U.S. Capitol building; visit various of the museums along The Mall; visit the Manassas Civil War battlefield site; do the Skyline Drive, along the Apallachians; and visit Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s home.
But all that will happen in the days to come. At the moment I’m still resting at the end of my journey from the UK, which was long and tiring. Up at 5:30, at Manchester Airport for a flight at 11am, eight hours in the air, two hours getting through US Immigration and Customs, and a final hour getting from Dulles airport to my hotel. From getting in the car to walking into my hotel room in DC took about fifteen and a half hours.
Here’s my first tip: the SuperShuttle shared bus ride from Dulles right to my hotel worked well. I had planned to use the bus to the metro station and then take the metro to the nearest stop, but although this would have been the cheapest option it would have been hard work. I’d have had to work out how to use the metro, and then make a change of metro trains at a main station in central Washington – all with my bags. The $34 I spent on the SuperShuttle was money well spent, and was about half the price of a cab. I don’t think I’d grasped how far Dulles airport is from central Washington.
Update: just had a bit of a shock with a restaurant bill. The meal was $43 which was already a bit steep, for a bruschetta ($10), a pasta dish ($23) and a glass of wine ($10). On top of that was the 10% restaurant sales tax, and on top of that was the (expected) tip – ’15 to 20%’ says all the advice. In the case of this evening’s meal the total was $55 or £36. The lesson is that I need to inflate prices on restaurant menus by at least 25% to get the amount that I’ll actually be paying. Ouch.