We only had time to spend one day in Washington, but if i could – i would have loved to stay longer. Before going to New York, we booked via Megabus a return day bus ticket from New York to Washington. Admittedly, it was a very long day – but very enjoyable. We left our house in Brooklyn at 4am and walked through the snow to our bus stop. The journey itself was only 3-4 hours but went by quickly as we slept right through it.

As soon as we arrived in Washington, we took a tour of the Capitol Building and the Library of Congress. Again, we booked reservations for the Capitol tour in advance. We watched a very patriotic movie clip of US history and how the Capitol building came about – was very interesting as i love US history. We then took the underground tunnel over to the Library of Congress to enjoy one of  the most stunning buildings in the city.

After grabbing some lunch in a nearby restaurant and having the best Mac N’ Cheese, we continued down the path by the reflecting pool and took lots of pictures of the Capital Building from afar. Due to Donald Trump’s inauguration being the following week, there were plenty of security and building works taking place – so had to angle the photos in a way that would avoid seeing them.

We continued walking down towards the Smithsonians Museums. There were plenty of museums to choose from such as; the Air and Space Museum, Natural History Museum, American History Museum, National Museum of the American Indian and the National Gallery of Art. Each is excellent and really depends on what you have time for and what you are interested in. I would have loved to spend more time in the museums but time only permitted us to visit the Air and Space Museum (for my brothers sake) and the National History Museum – which were really fascinating.

When we finally reached the end of the reflecting pool and rested by the WW2 memorial, we decided to take a detour towards the White House as we wanted to see the Washington monumentat night.

After taking lots of (bad) pictures in front of the white house, it was time to go back to National Mall to see the memorials – illuminated in all their glory!

By that time, we were exhausted and in a truly Arab style, had to run back to catch some delicious food from the train and bus station and to catch the last bus back to New York. Even though it was a rush, and could’ve easily spent a few more days in Washington, i absolutely loved the city and our day trip. Our day trip to Washington was perfect and a definite highlight of the US trip.