Day Five - Friday, July 31

Itinerary:

• Explore DC
  

We started our day by sleeping in a little. We had a rather long day traveling and we had stayed up a little bit later walking the mall the night before. Our bodies are still on west coast time, so we have been going to bed later and getting up a bit later.

As a part of the hotel deal that Brandon had secured we get breakfast each morning in the hotel restaurant. It was a good breakfast buffet with coffee and juice included. While eating, we planned our day. We wanted to see the National Mall in the day light and tour some other buildings. So we headed out for the day.

A random note that shows how crazy I am and how wonderful Brandon is…before we leave each day, I ask Brandon about 10-15 times if he has each thing we need for the day. Do you have the camera? Yes. Oh, do you have the room key? Yes. How about your sunglasses? Yes. Poor guy – what a good sport.

One of the first buildings we past on our way to the mall was the Department of Agriculture. In the parking lot there was a local farmers market, selling produce and flowers. We were wondering how difficult it must be to get a stall in the Dept. of Ags. Farmer’s market. It would probably be a neat place to get produce if you were a local.

As we headed to the mall we looked around in the daylight and took some more pictures. I am sure you can tell that we have been really into taking pictures this trip. It is mostly because we are excited and partly because we got a new camera. The camera we had before was large and bulky. We hardly took it anywhere because we would always argue over who had to carry it. So, we would end up leaving it at home. Therefore, we got this new camera (one that fits in a pocket) and vowed to take it places and take more pictures – so there you go. Oh and as with any new electronic gadget, Brandon is having an absolute blast experimenting with all the settings and setting up “Kyle” shots. (“Kyle” shots are lovingly named after our good friend Kyle Fischer, who loves to get the perfect shot – even if it means laying on the ground.) And just to show how nerdy we are check out the cool black & white mixed w/color picture we can take w/our camera - I know we are amazing!

The World War II Memorial (see picture) is fairly new and I had not seen it the last time I was in DC (1997). The designers did a great job of continuing the flow of the mall when they added this memorial in.

As we walked past the Washington Monument and towards the Lincoln Memorial we saw several planes fly over the area. We thought it was a cool shot so we had to get a few.

The size of all the monuments and memorials always surprises me. I remember the first time I went to DC and was shocked at how big the Lincoln statue was in the memorial. One of the coolest moments we had in the Lincoln memorial was standing between two families that were reading the words of Lincoln that are chiseled into the walls. On our left side a mother was reading it to her young daughter, stopping to explain some of the more complex ideas and on the right side a woman was translating his words into French while reading it to her family.


Today was our first full day in the DC heat and humidity and we were HOT. In many of the pictures you can see the sheen of sweat on us. Check us out!

As we walked out of the monument, we saw a girl posing in her best model pose for the camera. It made us laugh, so of course I had to do my best pose. I mean really who doesn’t want to strike a pose in our nation’s capital??!! I know, I know, Christmas card here I come! (Oh, and this became a popular pose - I may have struck it a few more times during the trip.)

Our next stop was the Vietnam Memorial. I am sure there has been much written about this memorial, but it is so amazing to see how powerful, such a simple design can be. We took a few photos, but mostly just observed. It was a moving memorial to visit.

After that we headed up Constitution Avenue to go see the White House. Now of course being the dorky tourist I am, I wanted to take a picture under the street sign. So I hung my purse on a post probably 10 feet from Brandon and then walked about 30 feet over to the sign and posed. As Brandon holds up the camera, I notice that he is laughing, in fact he is laughing so hard, he can hardly take my picture. Now, I think, “Am I posing funny, is my fly down, what is going on?” After he takes the picture, I walk over to him and ask him what is so funny. Apparently, while he was taking my picture two ladies walked by and with a European accent said, “Is she crazy??! This is America!!” They had seen me set my purse down for the picture and thought I was insane to set my purse down in the crime ridden country of America! So, of course, this became a quote worth repeating many times that day and throughout the trip.

Following our risk-taking with the purse we arrived at the White House. Along with everyone else we were hoping that Obama would decide to have an impromptu press conference or come out to greet the people that had gathered. Of course he did not, but we did overhear some ladies telling each other they were sure that was Michelle Obama over by the West Wing, they could tell by the way she walked. We got a chuckle out of that one. They were either setting up or tearing down for a press conference on the west lawn and we hung around to see if anyone would come out. We did see several men come out in suits and leave through the check point. As one of the guys came out Brandon said, “Where do I know that guy from?” and then he realized it was Verizon’s CEO, Ivan Seidenberg. Naturally, we took a picture of him and Brandon sent a text about it to some friends from work.

Then we walked around to the other side of the president’s home for some more photo opportunities. All this walking and celebrity politician hunting had made us hungry so we decided to look for a place to eat lunch. It was surprisingly difficult to find a spot around the area to eat. There were many corner stands with hotdogs and pretzels on the street, but we wanted a real lunch and we wanted to sit down in a place with air conditioning to enjoy it – did I mention we were sweating??

So, after a long search we saw a sign for a food court and ended up eating in the Regan building. It is a federal building which meant we had to show photo identification to get in, go though a metal detector, and put our bags through an x-ray machine. The food court had the average mall type fare, but it was fine and we enjoyed the air conditioning!! We decided to head back to the hotel to cool off, rest, and shower before heading back out. We used the metro to get back to the hotel.

Feeling rejuvenated after our rest and shower we headed back out on the town. The Smithsonian Castle was very close to our hotel. There are actually many (19) Smithsonian museums in DC and this “castle” is the information center. The best thing about the museums is that they are all FREE to the public.

We also walked by the National Gallery of Art, it was closed, but we stopped to take some pictures anyway. The huge door was really cool.

Our mission now was to find a fantastic place for dinner – we had heard from a metro employee that the “Gallery” was an area of DC that had many restaurants. After a quick walk around the area, finding nothing close by, we decided to hop on the metro and head that way.

It was clear that the Gallery area was the place for night life in DC, the streets were very crowded and there were many restaurants, bars, and clubs. The only hard part was choosing which place to eat. After more walking and checking out menus, we settled on a La Tasca a Spanish tapas restaurant. It turned out to be an awesome choice, the food was amazing and the atmosphere was just as cool.

On our walk back to the metro station we stopped in a couple of shops and grabbed some coffee. Starbucks was closed and so I got my coffee at Dukin’ Donuts. Now I know most of you northwesterners are cringing right now, but let me tell ya – after my not so lovely experience at Starbucks out here and the lack of a local coffee shop or drive through on every corner that was really my only option. And for drip coffee it wasn’t terrible, but don’t worry, I don’t think I will be stopping at the local Salem Dunkin’ for coffee any time soon.

As I mentioned before the metro stopped in the basement of our hotel plaza, so we had a quick walk up the stairs to our hotel. We went to bed pretty late again – having taken a nap and eating dinner at about 9:00PM – we are still on west coast time. Oh well, we are on vacation!

Before heading to bed we mapped out the rest of our time here. We only have two more days so we want to make sure we don’t miss anything we had really wanted to see. After that it was off to bed.