With the heat as bad as yesterday, I was taking no chances and took the metro out to Arlington Cemetery. Arlington Cemetery is an American War cemetery, with the best known tomb being that of J.F.K. At first, I wandered through random graves, taking in the little aspects – the number of stars at the top (representing the rank of a general killed); the age of death; the war fought. The number of gravestones is staggering, as is the size of the cemetery – it’s just a continuous set of rolling hills and white tombstones.


J.F.K.’s tombstone lies towards the back of the cemetery – a simple plaque lying on the ground, next to two of his children’s and his wife, Grace’s. A few hundred metres away lies the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which is under constant guard by a member of the Armed Forces. I watched the changing of the guard take place here, as it takes place every half an hour, and felt sorry for the soldier (who was decked out in full dress uniform) – it was 40 degrees! The Americans really do pomp and ceremony well though.


Next stop was Embassy Row, which began at Dupont Circle on Massachusetts Avenue. Washington D.C. has the most number of embassies in the world, and they are all extraordinarily beautiful buildings. There were some really random countries as well – Togo; Madagascar; Malawi; whilst South Korea had three buildings! I couldn’t find the Australian embassy – what a shame, as I’d really hoped to run into Kim Beazley (not!) who is the Australian ambassador to the USA. One thing I found of interest was a mosque at the end of the embassy strip, with the flags of Muslim nations flying in the front.


Although it was earlier than I had planned to come back to the hostel, it was too hot to remain outside and continue sightseeing. Back at the hostel I watched ‘Made of Honour’ with Patrick Dempsey (a run-of-the-mill romantic comedy); caught up on my blog and did my laundry.


At 6pm, all dressed up, I had some dinner and then headed to the Verizon Centre for … the Glee concert! Although it started at 7:30, the venue didn’t open until 6:30, and there was a large queue to get inside. Luckily, it moved quickly and I was inside soon enough.


I had a good seat – not on the floor but only slightly elevated from the stage, and had a clear view of the performers. First up was a dance troupe, who performed crazy stunts on stage for twenty minutes, and then it was what we were all waiting for – Glee! It kickstarted with a message from ‘Mr Schu’ and the evil Jane Lynch via video-screen, before the whole gang appeared on stage for ‘Don’t Stop Believing’, their big hit from Season 1.


Whilst there was no special guest appearance from either Matthew Morrison or Gwyneth Paltrow, each cast member had their time to shine. ‘Kurt’ performed a rousing rendition of Beyonce’s ‘Single Ladies’, backed up by Heather Morris who was actually a back-up dancer for Beyonce. Heather performed Britney’s ‘I’m a Slave For You’, dressed as per Britney’s film clip in a tiny green bikini-like outfit. Artie made it out of his wheelchair to perform ‘Safety Dance’, and the boys rocked out to Rebecca Black’s ‘Friday’, which had become such a cult hit (even Katy Perry does a version of it during her concerts!)


After an hour and a half of performing, the lights came down on the show. Feeling particularly ‘Gleeky’, I stopped by the retail outlet on my way out and purchased an ‘I Like Boys’ shirt (unless you’re a Gleek, you won’t get the significance). It was raining slightly as I walked back to the hostel, but the rain was a welcome relief to the hot weather. Back at the hostel, I printed off my bus reservation for tomorrow and then fell into bed, still singing Glee songs to myself. New York tomorrow