Day 1: Arrival & Monuments

Last Saturday, we boarded a nonstop flight to Washington, DC, our nation's capital. Neither one of us had been there before.

This is the first trip that we used exclusively carry on luggage, and it was great. Since it was summer and we're light packers, we managed to get everything we needed into one suitcase, along with a backpack for reading materials. Definitely the way to go!

Just like we found in our recent European travels, Washington had a metro stop right at the airport. Here's Brian waiting for the train:

And me, with the metro sign in the background:
Because the apartment we'd rented was on the same line as the airport (yellow) and a short walk from the metro stop, within about 45 minutes of landing, we were in what would become home for the week!

We've also recently decided to rent apartments whenever possible, instead of staying in a hotel. The reasons for this are many, but one of the main ones for me is being able to eat breakfast at home, enabling us to get a quicker start on our day. We looked on craigslist and found this apartment. The owner was so friendly and accommodating!

Some pictures from the inside of the apartment:
So much space! We barely went into this alcove, although if more than 2 people were staying here, it would have come in handy!

The bed was extremely comfortable.

We were hungry, so we looked at a list of recommended vegetarian restaurants we'd printed off back home. Our hostess had also provided us with a binder filled with information about amenities that were within walking distance of the apartment. Trying to decide where to eat...
We ended up at California Tortilla, which had been voted best vegetarian restaurant by a local paper. Brian loved the huge selection of hot sauces (over 50, I believe).
We walked for several hours, making our way to some of the better-known Washington sights.

Along the mall, we ran into this adorable squirrel. He's obviously used to people feeding him, but we just photographed him. As the sun started to set, we approached the Washington Monument. We had tickets to ride up to the top at a later date.We stumbled on the World War II Memorial. Both of my grandfathers fought in this conflict (in different theaters) but neither was alive to see this memorial erected. I read there had been controversy over the design, but I liked it.I couldn't decide which one of these pictures to post, so I'm putting them both on here. I took them on approaching the Lincoln Memorial. The sunset was amazing!
In this picture, I love how you can see Lincoln's statue, and the sunset reflecting in the water.We wandered around some more, and took the metro to the grocery store located near our apartment. After shopping, we had one more stop to get to the apartment. Here Brian is waiting with the bags.

One thing I really liked about the DC metro system is that there are boards indicating which trains are arriving, and how long until the next train arrives. I don't remember seeing this in any of the other metros we've used (which, admittedly, isn't that many). But, on more than one occasion, we changed our plans as we didn't want to wait the 15 minutes or so until the next train!

Our visit to the grocery store was possibly the most irritating grocery visit I've ever had in my life. There were maybe 3 lanes open, with about 6 customers in each one. Of course, we chose the wrong one!

I'm not even sure what was taking so long. When I first had an inkling that things would take longer than usual, I started my stopwatch. From the time I started my stopwatch (which was several minutes after we joined the line) until the checker started ringing in our purchases, 20 minutes elapsed! (The other lines weren't much better so we stayed).

The next night we stopped to pick up a few things we'd forgotten, and the wait this time was 10 minutes. I have never even waited that long before! We decided enough was enough and went to the nearby Target for any other food items we needed during the trip!

Day 2: Castle Tour & Smithsonian Museums

We have been Smithsonian members for several years, and one of the membership perks (since admission is free to the museums) is a free behind-the-scenes tour of the Smithsonian Castle.

As an aside, I would highly recommend Smithsonian membership to anyone. You get a fascinating monthly magazine and also help to support one of America's premier institutions. This magazine was one of the main reasons we decided to vacation in DC!

Our tour was at 9:30, but we got there a bit early which allowed us to explore the nearby gardens.
It might be a bit hard to read the sign, but these roses were called "Princess Alice." We didn't find any "Prince Brian" flowers.

Brian took a lot of flower pictures, and even some bug pictures when we ran into pollinators. I won't bore you with putting them all on here! These pink roses were among my favorites:
We sat on a bench and watched some birds taking a bath:

Brian, waiting, excited for our tour to start!
The Castle is mostly used as a visitors' information center for their other facilities, although there is also information about the founding of the Smithsonian. Additionally, James Smithson's crypt is here, as are the Institution's administrative offices.

They also have a large room where each local museum has a couple of display cases to summarize the type of artifacts housed there.

With building being built later than their European counterparts, there weren't many opportunities to pose next to tiny doors!

Here is an interior view of the room where each museum displays a summary of their contents. Although from the inside the room looks as though it were part of a cathedral (rose window, arches, etc.), our guide said that there was never any religious component in the design.I really liked this sign on the elevator, so of course I took a picture:We went into the room where board meetings are held. In addition to several other people, the Vice President of the US, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, 3 senators, and 3 representatives are on the board. We were told that we were sitting in the same chairs these people use in their meetings.

The walls were filled with portraits of the Smithsonian's past secretaries. What an amazing amount of history!

I forget which illustrious historical American figure owned this piece of furniture, but our guide told us that it used to be a piano! The string were strung vertically. Later this was used as a desk, and it's currently used as a display.After our behind-the-scenes tour, we were hungry for lunch, so we ambled off. We came across the Old Post Office Pavilion. We had lunch at their food court (classy, I know) and then went up in the elevator which afforded a view of the city:After lunch, we wanted to go to the National Archives, where some of our country's most important documents are on display. The line was too long, however, so we decided to return another day...We continued on towards other Smithsonian museums, but first we saw these two people taking a picture in the middle of the road! Shortly after I took this picture, the light turned green and they were stuck in the middle of traffic.We went to the National Air and Space Museum, which is apparently the most-visited Washington museum. They have small slices of moon rock on display that you can touch.

Brian was hoping that touching the moon rock might give him superpowers, but it does not appear that that happened. But it's only been a week.There was a replica of an astronaut's bed which we both tried out.

And then I pretended to have to use the spacecraft's facilities. Luckily I didn't really have to go as it was non-functional!

There were scales where you could weigh yourself and see what you weigh on Earth and what you'd weigh on the moon or some of the planets. If anyone wants to do this without stepping on the scale, there's a great website here.

Brian confused some people when he exclaimed, "Yup! 754 pounds!" when exiting the moon scale (it was really around 30 pounds).

After all of that excitement, we headed over to the National Portrait Gallery (another Smithsonian museum) and saw many amazing pieces of art.

The museum has a fantastic courtyard where we relaxed for a few minutes. Or maybe for a bit longer than that.

We had been on our feet for most of the day, and it was a struggle to get going again! Our stomachs finally provided the impetus to leave.

There weren't any restaurants around that were calling to us, so we stopped at the grocery store and purchased a few things for dinner. This time, checking out only took about 10 minutes, but there were only 2 people in front of us. I guess we shouldn't have been in such a hurry on vacation but we were hungry and just wanted to get home!

Day 3: Zoo

Monday morning, we decided to walk to the zoo -- it didn't look so far away on the map! Things got a bit complicated, but we eventually ended up at the right place.

Along the way, we marveled at the beautiful houses and yards. We didn't see many (any?) lawns. Wish we could do something like that at home, but it's against village rules.

I think this might be Rock Creek. In any case, it was very beautiful! Also, we took advantage of shady spots for a slight respite from the sun. It was quite hot even at 9 in the morning.

At one point, we could see that we were very close to the zoo, but weren't quite sure how to get there as the roads on our map were not clearly marked. We asked a construction worker (in the white truck in the lower part of the photo) and he told us we needed to get on top of the bridge! We had a steep and rather treacherous climb, but made it safely.

We were quite impressed with the zoo -- another class-act from the Smithsonian. Close upon entry, they had displays about how to increase the allure of your backyard to wildlife. Brian spent a few minutes photographing this butterfly:
Here's another angle; I couldn't decide which one I liked best.

This elephant gets a public bath every day, and we happened to be in the right place at the right time to see it. He loves his bath! It was great to see him following all of his keepers' commands so that his entire body was cleaned.

I must admit that we don't really understand the hubbub around pandas at zoos. When we were at the San Diego Zoo a few years ago, we didn't stand in the hours-long line for a close look at their pandas, but we did catch a glimpse of them en route to a different exhibit. There was no line at the National Zoo, but not much panda excitement, either.
I won't bore you with all of the animal pictures we took, but here is a giant tortoise. I think she's an Aldabra, but I'm no longer certain.
We really liked the Invertebrate Exhibit, although I must admit it creeped us out a bit. There were zoo volunteers that approached us and told us fascinating stories about the animals we were watching.

Brian didn't think that I showed sufficient fear on my face (there is nothing separating the viewer from the spiders), so he had to have a go (but not with his back completely to the exhibit!):
As we were leaving the building, one of the volunteers threw some crickets into the spider's web, and it was interesting to see how fast she went after them!

Our other favorite exhibit, of course, was Amazonia. We spent a long time in this building! We started out on the bottom, where there were lots of fish. The school of fish here are Australian Rainbowfish (so not sure why in the Amazon building!) but we have a school of these in our fish tank at home.
Here's Brian, looking into one of the other aquariums. The fish closest to him are discus.
In this short video, you can see one of the large fish trying to eat some zucchini. Although it may not look like he was successful, after he left, we could see that some was missing!

We then went upstairs, where the animals live together, not in cages. There were so many different beautiful species of plants and animals!
This bird was pretty good at camouflaging himself with the leaves!This one kind of reminded me of a cardinal. He was very quick and it was hard to get a good picture of him!
In the background, you can see a scarlet macaw. We watched her eating a nut for several minutes, and then she climbed up higher and disappeared from our sight.
We later came across these birds (I think they're rheas) who were very interested in Brian!
It was very hot, so we had to stop and enjoy a breeze when we could:We left the zoo and found a little Mexican place for lunch. Then we took the metro back to downtown DC.

Brian, reading the paper like a local:We toured the Smithsonian's Renwick gallery, and then wanted to located the White House since we had our tour the next day. There was extreme security, but you can partially see the White House in the background.
Then, we went to the Smithsonian's Postal Museum. I didn't have high expectations going in (after all, how exciting is the mail?) but we had a fantastic time and I would recommend this museum! There were many different interactive exhibits, including some where you could "solve" mail crimes.You could sit in this carriage and there was a voice talking about what the trip really would have been like.Since it was getting late, we thought we'd have a better shot at the National Archives than the previous day, and we did! We were able to walk right in.

This picture is extremely dark, but Brian is looking at the Magna Carta from 1297 when King Edward I confirmed the document first signed by King John in 1215. I believe it's the only copy in the new world.

We also saw the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights, but it was very crowded and I didn't take any pictures.

After a long day, we took the metro almost home, getting off one stop early to eat at another restaurant recommended by the vegetarian guide I referenced in an earlier post: Julia's Empanadas.This meal was so incredibly delicious that we decided we needed to go back later on in our trip. They have at least two vegetarian empanadas every day, with one changing frequently, as well as dessert empanadas, and a nice variety of soups and salads. We wish there was one of these near us!

After dinner, we went to the Target across the street from the restaurant and bought some snacks for the rest of the week.

Here is Brian entering our apartment. Isn't the entrance adorable, with the spiral staircase and everything?We got home around 7:30, I believe, which may seem early, but we were exhausted from all of our walking and sightseeing. Plus, we had early appointments for the next morning.