Guus Bosman

Yesterday I made a trip outside Washington. I went to Mount Vernon, which is the mountain where George Washington lived.

It's about 25 kilometers from the city; I went there by metro and then I took a local bus. It's a long trip, but I enjoyed it quite a lot. I bought a newspaper (the Washington Post of course), and read it entirely. It's really big; it's the size of Saturday newspaper in the Netherlands.

George Washington was the general of the United States during the Revolutionary War and later he became the first president. He also choose the location of the capital, which was later called after him.

Mount Vernon consists of the mansion where Washington lived, with all the estates around it. It is really well conserved. There's the mansion, side buildings, his slaves' buildings, and a huge park. I took a guided tour through his house, which was really interesting. In the hallway there was the key of the Bastille, a gift to George Washington by Marquis de Lafayette. The destroyed Bastille was the start of the French revolution.

The weather was really nice, so I sat on the veranda overlooking the Potomac river for a while. I was back in Washington around 16:30 o'clock, where I had some coffee and visited a bookstore. This place is simply a paradise when it comes to reading.