The capital of the United States of America is a city live with contradiction and irony. Beautiful monuments to our history exist steps away from what are indeed very poor areas. The city that professes to lead the free world is not allowed to govern itself,   and has a history plagued with corruption. Of the United States but not a state itself, the District of Columbia occupies a unique niche in American culture, the city whose purpose by design (for better or worse) is to rule.

Historical monuments, museums, and government buildings abound in Washington. Around the Mall, a park in the center of the city, you can find the US Capitol building, the museums of the Smithsonian, the National Archives, the White House, the Washington Monument, and the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials. Across the Potomac river in Virginia are the Pentagon and Arlington National Cemetery. Just to the northeast of Washington in Maryland, an easy car ride away, is another great city, Baltimore. The Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean are easily accessible. The city and the surrounding suburbs in Maryland and Virginia have an active and exciting night-life. There are clubs, bars, and theaters to satisfy any taste and restaurants of nearly every type in existence.

Although technically located in the South, Washington is a very cosmopolitan city and in fact bears little resemblance at all to the rest of the US. To most Americans DC is a fascinating place to visit, teeming with politics, diplomacy, history, and scandal.  Those of us who live "inside the Beltway" by choice wouldn't have it any other way.