Friday-April 16, 2010

Thursday night was spent in a Holiday Inn in Philadelphia. We had tried to get a tour at the Federal Reserve the previous day, but had failed. So on Thursday, we started the day off by visiting the Philadelphia U.S. Mint which was quite interesting. The tour included a hallway with exhibits outlining the history of the process of making coins, and some interesting events related to certain coins. If the Mint had produced a coin commemorating a certain event, there was an exhibit that had some history of the actual event. Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed inside the Mint.

After the Mint, we tried once again to get a tour in the Federal Reserve, but learned to our dismay that they would only take groups of 10 or less, and only after 11:00. It was 9:30, and we would have had to split our group into around three seperate groups. So we decided to skip the Reserve, and head onto the main attraction, Washington D.C.

Once at Washington D.C., we located our hotel, the Reagan National Airport Raddisson, and parked our cars in the adjacent parking garage. We then went to the Crystal City Mall for some lunch. Afterwhich, we proceeded to the Metro, a new experience for most of the class. We took the Metro to the Smithosonian National Museum of American History. The first exhibit we viewed was the authentic Star-Spangled Banner on display. This flag was the inspiration for our country's theme song and the exhibit was very touching. After this we visited alot of other very interesting exhibits, including Military History of America, Dresses Worn By The First Ladies, and Entertainment and Music. One thing that was really cool was a piece of the beam that was recovered from Ground Zero.

After the Smithsonian, we returned to the hotel to check in and take a brief break. Then we went to the Pentagon City Mall on an exciting adventure to find food. We found the food court and had dinner.

We then returned to the hotel to have evening worship and to divy up the food that will be used for each individual room's breakfast.

We look forward to Sabbath, and a relaxing day.

--Alisa Hill and Brent Weldemere