Our Nation's Capital!

Until last weekend, I had never been to Washington, DC!  I don't know how I managed this, considering that I've lived four hours away for seven years, love to travel, and am an American history nerd.  We finally decided to make it happen this Memorial Day.

We drove into town Saturday and arrived around lunchtime.  Naturally, it was a thousand degrees, but I worked hard to maintain a positive attitude.  Our hotel was just a few blocks from the White House, so that was our first stop.  Sadly, we did not see President Obama.

We did see some baby ducks, though!  I have been complaining a lot this year about not seeing any baby ducks at the lake near our house.

We walked down to the mall and saw the World War II memorial (I only cried a little bit once, upon spying an old veteran in a wheelchair), the Lincoln Memorial, and Vietnam Memorial.  

There were tons of people everywhere, which is to be expected, I guess.

At this point Ben thought I was going to sweat to death so we went to the National American History Museum.  We saw the fancy Smithsonian building on the way, which Ben hates because it "looks like dead flesh" but I thought it was nice.

We had dinner reservations at The Bombay Club, an Indian place.  Thirty minutes before we needed to leave the hotel, I checked Yelp and discovered attire was "dressy" to the point where the waiters wore tuxedos.  So we chickened out and went to the sushi place on the corner instead.  As it turns out, the sushi place (Zentan) was insanely good.  I discovered after we got home that it's a Susur Lee restaurant, which is exciting!  I've never eaten at a celebrity chef's restaurant that I can recall.  Anyway, we got the two vegetarian sushi rolls on the menu, some shiitake and spinach dumplings, and honey glazed tofu.  All of it was fantastic.

The next day, Sunday, was even hotter.  Hooray!  We went for breakfast crepes at this place near our hotel and they were sooo goooood.  Mine was nutella, banana, and strawberry.

Then we walked straight to the Capitol so we could see that side of the mall before it got too hot.  We saw the FBI Building on the way.  I did not see Seeley Booth.

 The Capitol visitor's center is closed on Sunday and there was nobody around - it was really peaceful and quiet.

From the steps of the Supreme Court building:

As you can see, by this time I was already a sweaty mess.  We moved to indoor activities.

We spent a lot of time Sunday in art museums - the National Galleries and the Hirschhorn - which was awesome because apparently families visiting DC with children do not go to art museums.  They were pretty empty compared to the other attractions.

Ben made a phone call from the National Gallery.

Just kidding, he didn't.  We just thought it was funny that they had a pay phone.  Who uses a pay phone???

We got a delicious lunch in the cafe of the National Gallery - greek feast!

Then we went to the Air & Space Museum.  Here is Ben with a rocket engine.

The Hirshhorn Museum (modern and contemporary art) was probably our favorite thing.  Ben took a zillion pictures of the exterior.

To the point where I was getting kind of irritated.

The best exhibit was Suprasensorial, with lots of color and light-based exhibits you could walk through.

Ben's a coolguy.

For contrast to the art museum picture above, here's what the Museum of Natural Science looked like.  We were there for about eight minutes.  Too crowded!

We met our college friend Toby at Ezme for dinner and got the vegetarian tasting menu - it was delicious!  I'm terrible and forgot to take pictures.

The next morning we went to Sticky Fingers bakery on the way out of town.  We got and enjoyed the cupcakes for which they're famous, but were both underwhelmed by our breakfasts (biscuits & gravy, grits, tofu scramble).  I don't know why vegan restaurants use so much Daiya (commercial fake cheese) in their food; real food from simple ingredients is so much better!  And their gravy was nothing compared to the Vegan Diner-based version I make at home.  Anyway, I do like supporting vegan restaurants so I'm glad we gave it a try.  If you go to DC, pick up some cupcakes there!

Although there were a few things I wanted to see that we didn't get around to (Holocaust Museum, National Archives, etc.), it was a great trip to our nation's capital.  Next time I will go in the winter, though.