Something Josef and I could agree on is that our travel itinerary was not perfect. Still, our timing for Philadelphia was, because this way, Marisha was able to host us. Well, Marisha wasn’t even there for the whole time, but her flatmates were. And they took care of us the second she had left.

On our way from Washington to Philadelphia, we made a 2-hour stop in Baltimore and visited the last resting place of Edgar Allan Poe and his beloved, and also the harbour area.

Marisha’s home is not far from Campus, and it is a whole house rented out to 6 students – and a kitten. All of the humans – except one – are students, and all of them are studying something that has to do with music. There is a music therapist, an opera singer, and a lot of musicians. The one who has already finished University is Scott, who did study something that has to do with film – and now he works with a children’s TV station in Philadelphia.

Philadelphia somehow managed to conserve a rather big area of old town, with a lot of parks and well restored buildings. Also, around Independence National Historical Park, there are a lot of signs explaining the history and use of buildings. INHP consists of different museums sheltering Liberty Bell, a copy of the Declaration of Independence, a desk once owned by Ben Franklin and so on. Not far from Independence Hall, one can visit Ben Franklin’s grave, and also a part-restoration of the former President’s Residence.

We did quiet some searching for couches in Washington, DC, but still didn’t manage to find a host. In the end, I posted an Open Couch Request, a rather new tool on Couchsurfing. Before it was invented, people who did not find a couch often posted their travel plans into groups. Many group administrators did not like those posts and special couch search groups were established. So, to help couchless people find couches, a special tool was installed that shows open couch requests on top of every users starting screen.

This way, we found Juan and his sister Veronica. They both were very busy on our arrival day, so we had agreed upon arriving only after 9.30 pm and had some generous breaks on the way. Amongst others, we visited Berkeley Springs, America’s first spa. It’s a cute little town where even George Washington stopped by to relish the natural thermal water at the local bath house.

Juan arrived after 11.30 pm, when we already getting ready for bed. Our conversation thus was limited to a “Hi, how was your day/journey?” and “Good night”. The next day, Veronica offered to take us with her into the city. She works at Georgetown hospital as a researcher. On the Washington DC group, we had found a guy from Boston who was looking for company to do some sightseeing, and we had agreed on meeting with him nearby the White House. Veronica dropped us off only 2 streets from there – perfect!

After meeting up with the guy from Boston, we spent 7 hours just walking from one end of the Mall to the other, paying a visit to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, the Lincoln Memorial and so on. It’s just incredible how many memorials and museums there are to be seen. Later that day, after the Air and Space Museum, we met up for a drink and a snack with some other Couchsurfers who were going to a Basketball game that night. When Veronica was finished with work, she picked us up again and we drove home. Josef had promised to prepare Kaiserschmarrn, so after shopping we started cooking. Veronica did a Puerto Rican dish called “tostones”, which is basically twice fried plantains with a special seasoning. It was yummy!

On our second day in Washington, we could again use Veronica as our “bus”, and went to Georgetown with her. After having breakfast in some café there, we walked over Key Bridge to Arlington Cemetery, visited John F. and Jackie Kennedy’s memorial, Iwo Jima memorial and Arlington  House and watched the Change of the Guard at the Unknown Soldier’s memorial. Via Arlington Memorial Bridge we then went back to DC and visited the memorials we missed the day before: Martin Luther King Jr., Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Jefferson Memorial.

Just a piece of advice to everybody who is planning on visiting Washington in the next weeks (or months): the Washington Memorial is closed, so you can’t go up to get a view of the city. If you want to get the view, go to the old US Post Office Building on Pennsilvania Avenue. You can go up the bell tower and the view is great 🙂