An American visit.

We planned our trip to Washington during July after our return from Austria. After the terrible events of September 11th 2001 we began to wonder whether it would be cancelled or not. When it became clear that security was being tightened all around the globe, we began to be less worried about going, and as the departure date got closer we became more and more excited about going to Washington and Virginia to see our friends.

The day of departure arrived and we set off for Heathrow Airport before dawn, giving ourselves plenty of time to check in for the flight. We boarded the plane on time although we did stay on the runway for a couple of hours whilst an engine part was replaced. Eventually we set for the land of the free on the other side of the 'big pond'. We arrived at Washington Dulles Airport about an hour behind our expected arrival time and then spent another hour getting through passport control. Security had certainly been increased over the past few days. We eventually met our hostess for a couple of weeks and we were whisked off to her home about twelve miles from the airport.

Wow, what a place this is. My perception of America before I arrived was that all of the towns and cities were made up of high rise buidings and skyscrapers - how wrong could one be? The area from the airport and throughout Loudon County consisted of mainly three story townhouses and single story shopping malls. Some of the offices and factories were perhaps about six stories high but this was not the norm.

We had a fantastic couple of weeks visiting all of the places of interest in and around Washington and could not have been made more welcome considering the events of a month previously.

This may have been my first visit to mainland America, but it certainly wasn't my last.