First stop, Lincoln Memorial.

“In this temple as in the harts of the people for whom he saved the union, the memory of Abraham Lincoln” is enshrined forever”. Powerful words. His two most famous speeches are also written on the inside walls in his remembrance. “This nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people by the people for the people shall not perish from the Earth.”

Directly in front of the monument, is the reflecting pool.  Too bad there was construction at the time, otherwise it’d looks way nicer.

On the south side of the memorial, there is the Korean War Memorial.

This phrase beside it is probably one of the most well said quotes.

Freedom is definitely not free.

On the north side of Lincoln Memorial, there is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The names etched into the memorial are everyone who was killed or missing in action.

This is where politics happens. The Capitol, where Obama pwns his political opponents and passes bills through congress.

Next stop, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Definitely lots of interesting things here!

To show off the history of aviation, naturally there is a model of the Wright Brother’s plane.

Eventually, we built fixed wing aircraft.

Fast forward a few decades, and there is a lunar lander.

In the present day, we are now blowing people up from afar using Predator drones…

Too bad there wasn’t enough time to visit other museums in the Smithsonian. Would have liked to see the natural history exhibits too. But at least I got to briefly see the Smithsonian Castle.

We then took a nice and relaxing boat tour on the Potomac River.

Of course there’s also the Washington Monument.

Then there is the White House, where the boss aka Barack Obama lives. There’s even three guys on the roof to see if there’s anything out of the ordinary.

Then while leaving the city, the tour bus driver had the great idea of driving into the Pentagon parking lot.

And here is a nice picture of sun rays passing through clouds that I managed to capture while we were on the road to the next destination.

We spent the night in Atlantic City, where those interested got the chance to visit the casinos and “try” to win money. I on the other hand, was pretty tired. I pretty much went to sleep right away when we got to the hotel. Needed some good rest for the trip to Philadelphia the next day.

More photos here

On the way to the port, we came across MIB Headquarters, aka Brooklyn Battery Tunnel.

The boat tour took us around the south end of Manhattan, so we got a good view of the skyscrapers out in the financial district.

Eventually the boat made it to Liberty Island.

We saw the Statue of Liberty in all her glory.

The boat tour cruised slowly through all the sites to make sure that people could not only take pictures, but also could appreciate the beauty that they were seeing.

The next destination was Wall Street, the world’s centre of capitalism.

The Federal Hall is located right on Wall Street.

So is the New York Stock Exchange. I remember busting through here in Modern Warfare 3 with guns blazing trying to destroy the jammer on the roof… Across the street is the JP Morgan building, which was the Gotham Stock Exchange in The Dark Knight Rises.

The Bronze Bull in Wall Street also attracts a lot of attention.

Then we walked a few blocks and go really close to the Freedom Tower (officially known as One World Trade Center). It is built on the original site of the World Trade Center site. It’s also designed to be 1776 m tall, representative of the year that America became independent. Quite a symbolic value. At the base, there is a memorial dedicated to the victims of the terrorist attack. We wanted to see it, but going in required a reservation.

That was the last destination of our NYC tour.  The next destination was Washington DC, the capital of the USA.  It would be a few hours drive, so we wouldn’t tour the city until the day after.

More photos here

Schwartz’s

I was told that this place is really well known for its smoked meat sandwiches.  Good thing we got the chance to try it because that sandwich was indeed very delicious (I find it very difficult to describe how good something tastes…).  For those interested, it’s located at 3895 St-Laurent.

Olympic Stadium

The next destination was the Olympic Stadium that was the main venue for the 1976 Summer Olympics.  It has quite a unique building style with its tower on an incline.

At the top, people can see across Montreal.  People can see the different structures nearby that were all once used as Olympic venues.  Nice view!

Here’s also a nice video of the view while going down the lift.

Driving by McGill University

On the way back, my uncle took us by the McGill University campus.  Didn’t really get to see much of the school except for what I saw from inside the car.

Family Reunion

Not exactly a touristy thing to do, but we had a rather large dinner with as many of our family members as we could.  We had 18 family members – not exactly a regular occurrence for us.  We could have had more, but we were missing my dad’s eldest brother’s entire family (7 people), two other cousins, and an aunt. And this was just my dad’s side of the family.

This was the best opportunity that we had in order for everyone to see each other in person and catch up after years of not seeing each other.  One of the nicest things about the family is that people very much respect these family gatherings and are eager to go to them.  I’m sure there are lots of people who don’t really share the same enthusiasm of seeing their relatives.

This dinner was also a birthday celebration for four people in the family that had a July birthday.  I want to post pictures, but I’m not able to since I’m not sure if the others would be okay with it.   But anyway, here’s a picture of a finished cake.

The next morning, we would leave Montreal for our tour to New York City, Washington DC, and Philadelphia.

More photos here