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!