Within 24 hours of Melissa and I booking our San Francisco Trip, she saw southwest flights to Washington D.C. for $54 each way. For $108 roundtrip, we counted ourselves in for an another long weekend adventure.
Thursday, May 28th - Arrival
on Wednesday, May 27th, we had our Christie Staff End of the Year Party. As soon as I got home, I was cleaning and doing laundry for this trip up until 1:30am. I had a full day of work, a meeting for summer school, and I immediately went to Melissa's house to pick she and her sister up. Our flight took off around 8PM, and we landed in DC around 11:45PM. We took an Uber to our hotel, the Westin City Center (not a hostel this time!), dropped off our bags and immediately walked the half mile to the White House. By this time it was about 1am the next day, aka, my 26th birthday.
Friday, May 29th - Day 1
We started this day with our walk to the white house after our flight, and I had to get cash out. Luckily there was a Wells Fargo right by the white house, and I took out $160. Can I just add that those bills were the most crisp dollar bills I have ever had. This lasted me the whole long weekend and I used my credit card a handful of times. As soon as we got to the hotel, we showered and I didn't even have to try to fall asleep.
We had planned to wake up at 8 am, but slept until almost 9. Woke up, put on work out clothes, and asked Siri where we should get breakfast. She found us a Crepe place near our hotel. We didn't have a set itinerary like I had for San Francisco, so we just made a list of things we wanted to get in. We went to the White House Visitor Center, the Capitol Building, the Supreme Court, the National Archives Building, and the White House again.
I had requested a White House tour from my congressman about 3 months ago (the day after we booked the trip), and about 2 weeks ago we found out we couldn't get in due to a peak in tour season. Apparently you need to request this 6 months in advance for it to happen. The White House Visitors Center was pretty cool though, and you can walk in whenever, for free.
Rachel's Brother Coleman works for a Congressman and gave us his own tour of the Capitol. It was nice getting to bypass some crowds/lines, not have to worry about navigating, and getting to see some things you wouldn't see on your typical public tour. He was able to take us to the House floor, and this was my favorite part of the day. I've watched my fair share of State of the Union Addresses, and I couldn't get over how intimate this room felt after thinking it was like an auditorium. I wasn't able to take my purse or camera in with me, but I definitely soaked it in.
After the Capitol we walked over to the Supreme Court, explored, sat in the courtroom and heard some interesting things about it. Lunch came from, We the Pizza. We had dinner plans to meet with my friend, Sara, and we needed to check more things off our list AND get back to the hotel to changed. We walked to the National Archives Building to see the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and Bill of Rights. Again, we couldn't take pictures, so I was soaking it in in my brain. It was cool to see in person, and sad seeing how faded the signatures were. The Supreme Court and Archives building were 2 things I never got to do on my 8th grade trip.
We booked it to the White House to see it in the Daytime (front and back), took our pictures, and were on our way to change. We were absolutely exhausted at this point, but the showers and change of clothes gave us a new burst of energy. We had hoped to hit up a museum every day, but we just couldn't get one in on this day. We met my good friend Sara and one of her friends from law school for Dinner at Capitol Brewing Co. We drank some yummo beer, caught up, reminisced, and I got a free birthday brownie.
After dinner we wanted to see some monuments at night. They were about 2 miles away, but we walked anyway. We saw the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, and MLK Jr. Memorial before calling an Uber to go back to the hotel. Sara came back with us for a slumber party.
When you include the late night White House walk, and all that we did on this day, my iphone calculated that I walked 17.36 miles on birthday, and my phone was dead for about an hour of walking... It was a good 26th Birthday!
Saturday, May 30 - Day 2
Again, we were shooting to wake up at 8am, but managed to slowly get up closer to 9. We were super tired from our walking adventures and knew that on this day we would Uber/Metro a lot more, and had planned to use our bike and roll groupon. We had breakfast at a cafe near the hotel with Sara, before she had to get back to her weekend plans.
We started our day later than planned at the Holocaust museum. got there around 11, but couldn't start going through the exhibit until 11:45. We were there for 2 hours. Lots to take in. We then took an Uber to the place where we needed to rent our bikes. It was right by Union Station, so we got to see that (super underwhelming after New York) and grabbed a smoothie to hold us over for biking.
We biked all the way from Union Station through the National Mall over to the Jefferson Memorial, hitting up all of the major monuments/memorials along the way.
After returning the bikes, we took the Metro to Chinatown and had an early dinner there. We saw more monuments/memorials by foot, headed back to the hotel for an earlier bedtime. We were up a little later packing and planning our final day's activities.
iPhone said we walked 9 miles on this day, and we think we biked about 8 or 9 miles.
Sunday, May 31 - Day 3
We wanted to leave at 7:45 this morning, but left at 8:30 instead. It is hard going up an hour. San Francisco had early rise times because we were behind 2 hours and it was a noisy/bright hostel room. We ubered to the Iwo Jima Memorial, took it in and took some pictures, walked through Arlington Cemetery to see the Changing of the Guard, and JFK's gravesite. Then we walked to the Metro and took it over to the Newseum area. The Newseum was on my list and was the only activity that we had to pay for (other than food).
I had found a place near the Newseum that I thought would be good for brunch, but while we were walking there we stumbled across a different place that had a $27 fixed menu of 3 courses, and for $10 you could get unlimited mimosas, bloody marys, and bellinis. DONE. I was super stoked to be getting in our "fancy" meal for the trip. Everything was DELICIOUS. Probably the best brunch I've ever had. Central Michel Richard is what it is called, and I highly recommend the Sunday Brunch. You have to go hungry though, because we were definitely hurting before course 2 was over, but course 3 was too delicious to stop eating. I also had a lot of coffee, water, mimosa, bellini, and bloody mary refills throughout this brunch. It's hurting me thinking about the end of that meal as I type this right now.
Melissa and I were a wee bit tipsy as we went to the Newseum. We walked in around 1:15, and shut the place down at 5pm. We didn't even get to explore the second floor :(. This was the coolest museum EVER. I have watched more news than your average twenty-something. My mom and grandparents have always had it on at home when I was little, and when I was in college I was engulfed in the 2008 Presidential Election, and have just always kept up with politics on my own since. This museum had some incredible artifacts and exhibits to look through, and I have to go back to do a more thorough job next time. 4 hours wasn't enough!
Our flight was pushed back from 7:55pm to 9:05pm, so we picked up our luggage and hung out at the hotel lobby for a bit. My phone needed to charge and I graded some papers. We ubered to the airport, had an airport sandwich for dinner, and landed in DFW around 11:20. My sister picked us up from the airport, I dropped the girls off at Melissa's apartment, and I found myself at home around 12:15.
The next day back at work was rough, but it was good to have another successful trip, and summer right around the corner!
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