Today (Day 3) was an interesting one. We got up a little earlier than yesterday, but we get so much better sleep so we don't feel like we need to sleep in. I decided not to get an omelet for breakfast (just so I can say I tried everything). It was okay, but I'm definitely only doing omelets from now on. We got ready and grabbed our snacks for the day and headed over to the capitol (our first tour set up).
We hit up the Metro and realized Stace must have left her pass on the bus last night, so she had to get a new one (and someone gets to enjoy the $6 she still had on it). We got there early hoping for an early entry for our tour, which worked (we got in 2 hours earlier than we planned), but we found out you can't go in with ANY food or water, so they made us pour out our water bottles (boo!).
The tour was VERY short (Stace says she remembers it being longer when she came last time, so they must have cut some things out), but we still got to see a lot of really cool things. Lots of art and sculptures and a bit of history (my favorite part), we also checked out the gift shop, but it was only okay.
At that point we ad some time to kill so we rented scooters, again, and headed over to the Holocaust Museum. This museum is VERY sad and graphic, which I had heard it was heavy, but boy I didn't expect that! There was so much I didn't know/realize about that moment in time. We did end up having to kind of rush through the end so that we could make our reservations for the Washington Monument.
Luckily we got there in time to be the first in line and we ended up meeting this nice older couple in line, who we joked a lot with (they were so sweet, at first). We rode up the elevator that had a silly information video (they made a joke that it was the tallest structure when it was first built, but then something else had been built that was taller, but since it had to be the tallest something, it is now the tallest stone structure, built with no steel, just held up by gravity and held breaths, haha. It also talked about how each state got to send in a stone to add to it and Wisconsin's was made of cheese). We got to the top to look out all the windows, which was a very tiny area, and we saw the silly older lady taking a picture of her hand flipping off The White House....awkward!! But we did get to see all the monuments from each side and it was a really cool view.
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| The White House!! |
After that, it was time for our zoo passes, so we headed that way. Let's say, it's a good thing that zoo was free, the first few things were all closed so we wondered if we were going to see anything there. Luckily, I found a Dippin' Dots cart and got me a Sundae and then after that we started seeing animals. We saw this long line and assumed it was people watching the pandas outside, so we were walking past it to see what was next and then we realized it was a long line to get into a house to see the pandas from inside. Stace made us butt that line and I felt SO guilty, but no one really said anything to us to stop and LONG lines at the zoo are such a weird concept, so I hurriedly finished my ice cream (no brain freeze, luckily). Now, I still don't get the line concept, but the pandas were really cute! But I did feel like I needed to make aments for jumping so many people that I made sure to keep opening doors for people and letting them through before me whenever I could. Other than pandas, we also saw some elephants (Stace's favorite), tigers (which I took a pic to send to Cara because she loves them lately), lions, orangutans, and some smaller animals, but man there were lines all over the place (which we ended up skipping).
Once we finished there, we headed to this big gift shop. Stace loves walking as many as she can find when we go somewhere new. It was in this super ghetto area (which oddly had expensive homes for some reason), but luckily we found a couple good things there. We then went out to "Dinner on Foggy Bottom," which ended up being some of the yummiest food I've ever had. I got a chicken pasta dish with butter caper sauce and Stace got a burger with onion cream sauce, we split our meals to share and both were SO good. I'd go back there the rest of the trip if we could, haha.
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| The Korean War Memorial we happened upon |
Now that we were fed, we decided to go check out the MLK Jr Memorial (which was really cool, as usual) and then back to park across from the Jefferson Memorial for the night view. We enjoyed watching the sunset while figuring out the next few days and our departure day. We realized we'll probably have to Uber to the airport since our flight leaves so early and the Metro doesn't run that early (and doing busses will take hours). We're a little nervous since neither of us have ever Uber'd before, but hopefully with it being both of us, we'll be okay.
We got ready to take the bus back to the hotel, but when it got there, my card said it had too low of a balance so we got off planning to walk. As a note, I really don't mind walking, I love getting as many steps as possible. And walking at night isn't too scary here. There are lots of families and a good amount are out just as late as we are so I always feel safe (I think I'm driving Stace nuts because she'd rather do bikes or scooters, haha). I made some comment, like, "guess we're not taking the bus" and got off, but then these ladies that were waiting with us started calling out and it turns out one of them paid for my ride. The people here are SO nice!
When we got back, we asked the hotel people about doing the Uber and about the parts we didn't understand and they were very helpful. I love this hotel (even Stace says she's starting love the Embassy Suites chain).
Now that we've settled back in and I've taken my shower and called home, it's time to rest for tomorrow.
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