A kid's first hand report to her friend on her experiences at Washington D.C.

Dear Sunny B.,

Today I returned from Washington D.C. {Well, basically "today" because 12:37 a.m. is supposed to be the first hour of the day}.

Now I'll tell you a little about my visit.

As was planned, we started from New Jersey on Saturday at 9:45 a.m. We reached the Baltimore Aquarium at 1:something p.m. We still hadn't eaten lunch. Then when we got up to one of the ticket counters, we got all of our tickets except Simmi(my sister) because she doesn't need a ticket. Then the trouble starts.

Suddenly, as we are heading towards the door of the aquarium, the person that gave us the tickets suddenly shouts that because of the crowd of people in the aquarium, we can't go to the aquarium until 4:45. p.m. Disgusting, and we still hadn't eaten lunch. Then, my mom realized that we had forgotten to bring lunch. Then she remembered that restaurants at tourist places make their food much more costly. Then my dad suggested that we go to P.F. Chang's because that is usually less costly. Then my mom says that grandpa might not like noodles, noodles and more noodles. Then my grandpa throws a tantrum that he can eat noodles anywhere and at anytime.

Finally, after about an hour or so, we find ourselves a normally priced Asian restaurant. After some while, my mom throws a tantrum because we didn't bring food from home and the food at the restaurant was horrible and that we were wasting our money. Then she said that she wouldn't eat this "uncooked" food. A bad start to a good day.

Then we got busy taking pictures and drinking lemonade and water. That took about up to 3:45. Then we lazied around the park until 4:25 and then headed out to the line forming at the speed of light at the door of the aquarium. At long last, {at 4:45}, we were allowed inside of the aquarium.

We see little sharks and stingrays on top of a high pier {balcony}. Then we went and explored fish, octopuses, sea lilies, anemones, clams, and last of all, real sharks. After seeing all of those animals, we went to the dolphin show. The dolphins leaped, jumped, and played when their trainers signaled them to. One dolphin jumped 25 feet off the water and touched it's nose to the exact target. The most enjoyable of all, the dolphins copied whatever the trainers were doing. For instance, when the trainers were waving to the people, the dolphins were waving too.

After seeing all of this, we drove ourselves to the hotel 4 blocks away from the White House. Before going to sleep, I turned on the Olympics channel {NBC at 8:30}. Michael Phelps won his first gold medal in swimming! His target is 6 more. In case you're confused, Michael Phelps is a 20 year-old swimmer swimming for America in the Olympics.

Next morning, on Sunday, we headed out to the Capitol building were laws are made. Then we drove to the White House about 2 minutes away from the Capitol Building. After that, we entered the NASA Museum. I saw the command module of Apollo something which was actually once in space! Then we went to the hands-on section of the museum. I got to see many things such as what is pressure, and why airplanes have wings shaped like they do. When I walked a little farther, there was this chunk of an airplane that people had cut out for the museum. There was the seats, the racks up head for storing luggage, food on the trays, and sculptures of people on the seats. Wow! In one part of the museum, there was this actual dead monkey that had once been launched into space. Disgusting, but cool. After that we went into a building that was once a portable house launched to the moon. In there, there was a bag for going to the bathroom, beds with straps so that you wouldn't float out of bed while sleeping, and a magnetic dining table with magnetic dishware so they don't float of the table also. Very interesting. Also, there was this real plane where Simmi went into the cockpit and the plane actually started moving! Good thing no one was around and that she hadn't stepped on the gas pedal or she would've taken off! {Just kidding about the taking off part}. There were many other things that we did see, but they are too hard to express in words. They will be easier to express when you come back to New Jersey and we can talk on the phone or meet each other.

Next, we went to the National History museum where we saw whale fossils, dinosaur fossils, butterflies, priceless diamonds, priceless gems and a gift shop. From the gift shop, all my mom allowed me to buy was a souvenir penny.

Anyways, after that, we got stuck in a big car jam that lasted for two hours and finally reached home at 12:37 a.m. How sad. Tell me something about your visits. Bye for now!

From your sleepy BFF,

Debby M.

(Debby M is a friend of my granddaughter Sanchitha. Both are friends.)