Hi bloggers!
I'm finally back to wrap up not one, but two weekends!! We have the four day weekend trip to DC, and this past weekend where we stayed in town and did a lot of drinking and socializing, though I think I'll post that one tomorrow.
This might be a long one, so let's get started.
Friday April 26th we woke up bright and early to head to the airport. I'm terrified of flying, so pretty much focused on deep breathing not panicking until we arrived. Then I kind of panicked. The airport bar was closed, but I instagrammed photos of myself being sad at the airport until it was time to board. After a fairly uneventful flight, we landed in Baltimore and in the quickest luggage pick up ever, grabbed our bags. Our ride was stuck in traffic we headed to the bar, a local brewary station and started drinking. He finally arrived to pick us up and we headed back to his apartment to change and get ready to sightsee!
We bought passes and got on the metro. My first time on public transportation. I managed to not throw up from motion sickness the entire trip, but I was super glad that our first 2 days in town we had a friend to help us navigate the metro. Not used to that shit, lol. We headed immediately to the National Zoo, because Zoos are one of my favorite places to be in the world. We saw the PANDAAAAAAS! well, we saw one panda. the other pandas were hiding and being lazy, but one was good enough.
We wandered around for a few hours and saw other animals...none as cool as the panda but cute none the less. We headed back to the apartment, exhausted and showered, changed and had some drinks while we waited for our friend Stephanie to get off work. Z's friend Andrew met us at the apartment and we headed off to Georgetown for dinner and drinks. We found a gorgeous restaurant with outside patio that we enjoyed while we stuffed our faces, then headed to a 'beach' bar for margaritas.
Saturday morning we got up early, and had some breakfast then headed back to DC for our Arlington Walking Tour. We had an AMAZING tour guide. If you're ever in DC, look up DC on Foot walking tours. It's a pay what you want tour, and they have all different places that they do. We spent 2.5 hours walking around Arlington and learning all sorts of history. I come from a very military family and spent most of the tour crying, especially at the changing of the guard and the wreath laying ceremony they did. My dad was so thrilled we went though, and I know my grandpa would have been too.
After Arlington, we went down towards the Capitol, grabbed some lunch and then went on our tour of the Capitol Building. That one was short and sweet, and we had a hilariously smartasses tour guide for that one. Lots of cool painting and statues to be had. After the tour, we met up with 2 of Z's fraternity brothers for drinks, then headed back to the apartment and ordered chinese food before some Trival Pursuit and an early bedtime.
Sunday we woke up to clouds and potential rain. The two friends we stayed with both had work they needed to do, so Z and I ventured into DC on our own to meet one of his high school friends for brunch. This place (vinotecha) had bottomless mimosas and bananas foster french toast, and it was heavenly. The rains held off all day, even though it was gloomy and kind of chilly. We left brunch and decided to do museums, in the hopes that Monday would be sunnier to do memorials. We saw the American History Museum, Natural History Musem, and Holocaust Museum. Everything was soo cool, and I felt like I learned so much in all these places. The Holocaust Musuem we didn't get to see much of, since they were closing early for an special event, but it was sad enough on the limited tour. I felt like as Jewish people, it was something we needed to see, and we definitely did. I almost punched some 17 year old girl for talking about how boring it was and how she wanted to do her hair, but other than that it was an interesting trip.
Late afternoon we headed back to the apartment, and headed to Ted Turner's steakhouse for dinner. I know this is a chain, but we don't have them in FL so it was a lot of fun. The food was AMAZING, as was the chocolate milkshake I had for dessert. After dinner we headed home for some poked, where I beat our friends and my husband and won $15, lol.
Monday was our last day in DC, and we were to fly out Monday night. Our friends both had to work, so we got up and headed back to DC again, navigating the Metro like old pros now! We got to DC and it started pouring. We found a Cosi to duck into, which was as amazing as everyone said it would be, and came up with our plan. We wandered over to the White House and took pictures outside, since our tour had been canceled. Then we walked as quickly as possible through the rain allllll the way over to the Air and Space Museum. That was Z's favorite by far! All the planes and space shuttles, and interviews with WWII vets was definitely awesome. I was already thinking how cool it will be to take our future kids there and teach them all this stuff. After Air and Space we wandered back towards the memorials, and finally got to see the Washington Memorial (not up close though, it's still under construction), the Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam and Korea. My grandpa served in both those wars, so this was another sad, somber experience, but one I'm glad I've got. My dad got a little choked up when I told him we went to the Vietnam Memorial, and had some friends he wanted me to find on the wall. All the memorials are soo big and breathtakingly gorgeous. You see them on TV and in movies, but up close it's unreal.
After all that, we were starved and found this random cigar bar restaurant to duck into. After eating AMAZING sandwiches and checking out all the cigar boxes in the walls, we got back on the Metro to head back. One more stop at Cosi for the green apple green tea (new obsessions. I've got a pitcher infusing in the fridge right now) and we got changed, packed and headed to the airport. We got to the airport really early, checked in and indulged in some nachos and sangria to help me calm down before the flight. I LOVE airports, but hate flying. This flight was practically empty, so it was nice and quiet, and even with a bit of turbulance, wasn't too bad. The problems came after we landed, and the shuttle was soo gross, then the lot had lost my car keys so everyone else was gone but us and the lot guy at 11:30 at night. I was furious, and Z and I finally had to go into the room, in the dark, with our flashlight apps to find our own keys so we could go home. Needless to say Tuesday morning at work was rough, and I will be reviewing them on Yelp for damn sure!
All in all it was a great trip. Z and I are such nerds and love history based learning vacations, so we had a great time. We probably walked 20 miles in all, so I told him the next vacation needs to be a relaxing beach trip. Luckily we've got a trip to the keys this fall for a wedding, so I can enjoy relaxing then. I came back to 4 weddings in less than a month, and all sorts of stuff that needs to be done, which explains the delay in posting this, but I love being busy!
If you made it through all of this, bravo. I hope you enjoyed the walk through our DC trip :)
Happy Thursday!
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