Washington, DC

Kate's trip to visit me and David in the nation's capital was the inspiration for this blog. So here's how we spent 3 days in DC!

We live in the Rosslyn area of Arlington, so we started there when Kate arrived on Monday afternoon. We walked around the Iwo Jima Marine Corps Memorial and over to Arlington Cemetery. We saw JFK's grave and the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. We walked over Memorial Bridge to the Lincoln Memorial and went up the mall to the Vietnam and WWII Memorials. After walking around the White House, we sat at an outside table and had a glass of wine at Cafe du Parc. We had dinner at the Old Ebbitt Grill- such good calamari, cannelloni, and crab cakes! Then we went down the street to the new rooftop bar at the W hotel. The view was amazing- even though you have to go through a doorman, downstairs hostess, elevator hostess, and upstairs hostess to get to the bar. Since it was a Monday night, we had no problem getting in, and it was really cool to see the monuments and White House all lit up at night. So we stayed late, had some wine, and took it all in.

Tuesday we got off to a slow start. Kate and I went shopping along M Street in Georgetown and had lunch at Martin's Tavern. Booth 3 is where JFK proposed to Jackie. We got to the American History Museum a little before 5 (most of the museums stay open until 7:30 in the Summer) which was great because it wasn't as crowded, and we didn't have to wait in any lines to get into the exhibits we wanted to see. We came back to Rosslyn for the Marine Sunset Parade at the Iwo Jima Memorial (6:30 to 7:30 on Tuesdays in the Summer) which was cool to see (lots of patriotism and precision marching and gun tricks and men in uniform), and John McCain happened to be there! We walked over the bridge to Georgetown for dinner at Pizzeria Paradiso- so good. We wanted to get back to Rosslyn, so we had a beer at the Continental before heading home. I would recommend staying in Georgetown and going anywhere there over going to the Continental, which is a strange Jetsons-esque pool hall and bar, but we had fun and Kate made an interesting new friend.

Wednesday we started at the National Air and Space Museum at 11 with a free guided tour, which was a great way to see the museum and learn a lot without having to spend a whole day there. Then we walked through the National Gallery's Sculpture Garden on our way over the Portrait Gallery/American Art Museum. We passed the National Archives on our way-which I would generally recommend seeing, but there was a long line so we decided not to bother. After seeing some good art, we went to the Museum of the American Indian's cafe for lunch. They have really good native-inspired regional food. We walked next door to the Botanical Gardens, and then went up to the Capitol building. Andy's sister came with us and got us passes to see the Speaker of the House's office, which was really cool to see. The House isn't in session, so we didn't get to see the chamber, but apparently when they're there you can get passes from your rep or senator and see all that. I needed to get back to Rosslyn after our tour, but if we'd had the time and energy it would have been nice to see the Library of Congress reading room and lobby while we were in the area. For dinner we went to Jaleo for tapas-so, so good (sangria, bacon wrapped dates, green beans with apricots and serrano ham, scallops, garlic shrimp, hanger steak...it was all so delicious). After, we went across the street to Poste and sat in the courtyard and had tasty Loose Cannon beers.

And those were our 3 great days in DC. If we'd had another day, I would have wanted to go out to Mt. Vernon and spend the evening in Old Town Alexandria. And if the 3 days had included a Friday night, we would have gone to the Jazz in the Sculpture Garden, which is always really fun.