The Capital of the mighty U S of A was the first Capital in the world to be design from scratch to be a Capital.  It is largely there purely to run all of America and its interests and thus is a tad boring if you read some blogs.  I didn't find that at all although I'll admit that we went there to see the Capitol, the White House, the Mall and the Smithsonian and not for any nightlife or 'fun' so it's hard to judge from that side of things.  But what we did see was a lot of American History and it was all good, almost too much really.
The design of Washington is this.  Next to the Potomac River, 2 large, open green spaces were designed, the one heading North was to have the White House built at the end, the one heading East was to have the Capitol built.  On a direct line between the 2, a large Avenue was to be built.  From there there were roads designed to run North-South and East-West and others that ran parallel and perpendicular to the initial Avenue.  The final design of the Capital of America is actually very pretty and interesting when viewed from above.  However the crowning achievement of this design is the large green space that is called The Mall.  Along either side The Smithsonian have set up 11 Museums that all have their own topic.  And of these that most popular is the National Air and Space Museum so that is where we went first.  This place contains everything that had made America the leader of the Air and Space innovation from the early stages of the 1900's.  Yes Britain, France, Germany and Russia have all had there moments in the sun, so to say, when it comes to sky dominance or with Russia, space firsts, but it really has been America that has driven this form of transport throughout the last Century.
The obvious first's that come to mind, the first powered flight done by the Wright Brothers, the first Solo flight across the Atlantic by Charles Lindbergh in The Spirit of St Louis and the first manned Moon Landing are all there with special exhibits that are worthy of their achievements.  Others things that caught my eye were the first plane to break the sound barrier, the Bell X-1 piloted by Chuck Yaeger, an Amelia Earhart plane that she piloted in 1932 and the huge food court, sorry, indoor McDonalds.  Really this Museum is about taking your time and reading up about history, whatever is in front of you and learning something.  Sure you probably wont remember anything but sometimes there is something that sticks.
We also went to the National Museum of American Indians, National Museum of Natural History, National Museum of African Art, National Museum of American History and popped into some Modern Art thing for all of 5 minutes ....  While you are in Washington you also need to see The Capitol, the National Library, the National Archives Building, Lincoln, Washington and Jefferson Memorials and everything else along The Mall, there really is so much to view that you are absolutely tired of it all after 4 days.  Luckily after 4 days we were heading back to New York.
The other thing that we did and it's a first for me, was to go see one of the big 4 team sports in America, a live game of Basketball.  On the Tuesday night the Washington Wizards were hosting the Milwaukee Bucks, a battle of the perennial under-achievers.  The star of the Wizards is a bloke called John Wall, a 6'4" guard, former number 1 pick who runs like the wind and can pass to someones chest 20 metres away blind folded.  The team leader is a big Polish man by the name of Gortat, Marcin Gortat.  The opposition is lead by a couple of young guns, small forward Jabari Parker who was out injured and the 'Greek Freak' Giannis Antetokounmpo.  The Game started rather quickly with the ball going up and down the court before Washington put a few on the board to get the lead.  The Bucks came back hard to get in front towards the back half of the opening quarter before The Wizards steadied to lead at Quarter time.  And that was the game.  The Wizards and especially Wall took control of the game and went on a 18-2 run to basically put the game to bed half way through the 2nd.  It was fun to watch and Audrey was great.  It didn't matter who did what, she clapped everything that was good, either team which got some looks from the pro Washington crowd surrounding us.  Even the lady next to us gave us a couple of looks when we clapped Milwaukee even though she spent the whole game watching her mobile phone and was obviously oblivious to the score line or who was doing what.  All in all it was a good night even though the beers cost around $15 bucks and the hotdog another $10.
If we ever come back to Washington we still have a few things to do.  We didn't visit the south side of the Potomac, namely The Pentagon and Arlington Cementery and we didn't get to the suburb of Georgetown.  And we certainly didn't get to visit all the Museums.
New York is next.  God help us.