Honestly, I don't know of many places in NY to see, but in your visits to "the corners" of the country, don't miss the right-hand side part

Washington D.C. is indeed a unique city (no Bit, no more unique than any other), and the fact is you could tour the city for days and never pay for anything but food and lodging. All the museums in town are free (except for one, darn Newseum), and that's saying something given the very high number and quality of the museums the town has to offer. Then there's the monuments, and some nice parks.

Also, one of my favorite things about the area is that you don't have to get very far out of the city to see nature. 15 miles out of Washington is a large national park (Great Falls Park) with class 4 rapids (and great observation decks to see all the nuts taking them on).

As far as eating goes, it's not NYC, but it's a pretty ethnically diverse area, and there's restaurants to cater to people here. I love my local Persian restaurant, and while there's more Chinese restaurants in our country than there are McDonalds, there's one in particular in our area that all the politicians (including Presidents) go to. More importantly, it's the only Chinese restaurant that I've seen Chinese people eat at (and large groups of them).

Anyway, I would offer a room, but I'm not sure if we have the space. But I hope you make it out to the D.C. area. As far as tourism goes, I think it has a lot to offer.


Oh, and Seattle is wonderful in August.