Washington Day 3 - Blossom, what Blossom?

We travelled into DC after breakfast to meet Matt, Nicky and Amaya. Amaya is 10 days older than Robbie. Matt is a friend of Roberts from his Mission days.  We parked in an underground car park on the edge of the city centre.  The only way out of the car park was via a lift, there were no stairs.  The lift initially went the wrong way, but we saw daylight eventually.  Then we went for a long walk across the city, seeing many of the sites, and eventually arriving at the "Lucky Bar'
I now understand how disappointing it is for visitors to a city when they arrive in a tourist destination to find buildings covered in scaffolding.  There are building works (construction) everywhere, obscuring the view, preventing normal access and generally being obstructive.  The Capitol dome is covered in scaffolding.  It will all be a great improvement when it is finished, but for now ...
The White House is an unassuming building (for the area).  If the image was not firmly planted in your brain by films and news reports you would just ignore it and look at the much larger and more ornate grey building next door.
We walked on the the Lucky Bar on Conneticut Avenue NW to watch the Newcastle vs Arsenal game and have lunch.  It is an English Pub, and is affiliated to Arsenal somehow.  It looks like a New York bar, very narrow entrance, with a bar at the front and space at the back.  It is here I notice the occupancy limit notices that are all over the place here - more health and safety? I have time to look around because Robbie it busy picking at a paint blister on the wall.  They do not serve DeCaff, so I try the "Brooklyn Brown", a very drinkable brown ale, with a good smooth flavour.  We ordered Fish and Chips, and hoped!  Heinz ketchup and malt vinegar were delivered to our table, the fish and chips arrived hot and they were proper chips, not the McDonalds style at all.  A very nice meal, except for the tartar sauce, which had way too much of a bite to it.
Matt guided us around the city a little more so that we could get some photos.
On the way back home we stopped at Nandos.  It is so very similar to the Nandos in the UK, and could easily be mistaken of a UK restaurant. 

We have walked a lot today, Karen has sore feet, and we are tired.  I also have sunburn on my head, the skies were clear, but the day was cold.  I have learned that hats are required even in March, but I don't have one here!

Today is the start of the Cherry Blossom Festival, there is supposed to be a parade, but we did not see it.  Spring has been cold here, so there is no blossom to look at anyway, most of the trees still look like they do in the middle of winter.