I'm at Dulles airport waiting for my flight back to the UK - thank God, I hear you chorus, no more American politics! Well, indulge me one final time as I tell you about yesterday evening and my rather disastrous day today.

At 8.30pm yesterday evening a group of five of us had a privately arranged tour of the West Wing of the White House. To be honest, I wasn't expecting to see an awful lot, but boy was I wrong. Our guide was a friend of one of our group, who works in the next door Dwight Eisenhower Old Executive Building (which President Bush calls 'The Ike'). We walked into the main entrance of the West Wing, next door to the swimming pool. You're immediately struck by the homely feel of the place. The corridors are bedecked with pictures of Dubya at work and at play on his Texas ranch. There was a particularly fetching one of him covered in dirt. It was the kind of picture that women of a certain age would go gooey over, I suspect.

Our first stop was the Rose Garden and the colonnade, which leads to the outside door of the Oval office. I remember a great black and white picture of Ronald Reagan walking down the colonnade with George Bush Snr. We were then shown the Cabinet Room before being taken to the Oval Office.

To be honest I had doubted we would get to see the Oval Office, so it was a real surprise to walk up to the door and get a panoramic view of it. You're not allowed inside, but, kid that I am, I did put both feet inside the door under the rope and sent a blogpost (see three blogposts down!). Shane Greer did the same about ten seconds later. We both got a kick out of that!

The Oval Office was a bit smaller than I imagined and looked more like a living room than the replica in the West Wing TV series. The decoration was very light and airey - all creams and yellows, including the carpet, which I had imagined to be blue. We saw the Churchill bust given to Bush by Tony Blair. The only jarring part was George Bush's chair behind the famous desk. It was a high backed leather chair which looked a bit plastic - totally out of kilter with the rest of the furnishings.

We then got to go the White House press briefing room, which has just been refurbished and had our pictures taken in front of the podium.

I have to say that the 90 minutes we spent there were well worth the cost of the entire trip. It was an honour to get to see the place where so much history has been made.

Afterwards, we went to a Brazilian restaurant. What superb food. They give you a plate and the waiters come to you with about 15 different kinds of meat until you cannot eat anymore. It wasn't cheap but it was certainly an experience.

This morning I was woken at 3am by a text message from my cab company who I had booked to meet me off the plane tomorrow. The driver was at Heathrow and was wondering where I was. I had given them the wrong day! Aaaaagh.

I went back to bed then convinced myself I must have also booked the flight for yesterday. So I got up again, checked the paperwork and it said Feb 9. In my delerium I thought that was yesterday so started to ring Virgin to beg for a seat today - it was only then that I realised Feb 9 was indeed today. So I went back to bed and then of course couldn't sleep.

My morning got worse when I discovered that my iPod had given up the ghost and refused to work. Luckily I had just enough time to go and buy a Nano and download some music for the flight home.

And then I went to CPAC to interview Newt Gingrich. His minder cut me off after only three questions, so I'm not sure I'm even going to bother posting it. He did not impress me.

One hilarious tale from this afternoon. I got talking to a young girl from Alabama at CPAC and was explaining to her the differences between British and American Conservatives. I mentioned that neither abortion or gay rights were big issues in British politics. "Oh," she said, "I've never met anyone who's gay." I then offered my hand and said, "well now you have!" She roared with laughter and then added: "We don't have any gay people in Alabama." I told her the horrible truth and we then joked that they had all probably left or been driven out of the state.

Anyway, after that little ramble, I'll stop now and let you wish me bon voyage!