Day 6: Arriving in DC!

This morning we woke up in Virginia, got around, and left for Washington, DC.  As we drove into town, the word that came to mind was "grand."  Everything in this town is grand.  Unlike most cities with skyscrapers, nothing here is that tall.  The buildings are wide (like a whole city block) and sturdy and, well, grand.

Our hotel is very nice.  The only problem is I booked it using name your own price on Priceline, and I accidentally checked the wrong neighborhood.  And it is sort of in the ghetto.  But, the actual hotel is modern and spacious, it has high security, and the subway stop is right outside, so no complaints.

Now, we have heard that traffic in DC is some of the worst in the entire country.  Not only that, but it is hard to drive because the streets start and stop, signs are confusing or nonexistent, drivers are rude, and so on.  Our plan was to return our rental right after checking into the hotel.  Traffic wasn't bad during the late morning, but we definitely got to experience how confusing it is to get around.

We then grabbed lunch at Union Station.  My book said they had a large food court, and that was the truth.  Biggest food court I have ever seen.  Not only that, but it was packed with people.  And it's not just the food court, the entire station is happening.  It has a lot of stores and things to do; it is like a gigantic, people-filled mall.  This isn't a great picture; I was just trying to show how crowded it is.

After lunch, we headed to the Capitol.  A guy I went to high school, Brett Spitzer, is interning there and volunteered to give us a tour.  Since we had just gotten into town I hadn't really had a chance to orient myself yet and I was not even sure that the building we were standing outside was the Capitol (seriously, there are a lot of big, important looking buildings).  I asked a bystander if the huge building in front of us was indeed the Capitol building.  Mark was embarrassed.

While we were waiting for the tour, we did some people watching.  It was swarming with suits and people advocating for their causes to get funding in the budget; specifically there were a ton of people wearing Planned Parenthood shirts.  Here is one large group on the Capitol steps:

Brett did a fantastic job at giving us the standard tour.  We weren't able to see the  Chambers where Congress is currently trying to figure out a budget to prevent a government shutdown because there was an incredibly long wait, but we did get to see a lot of neat things.  Here's the inside of the dome:

We went into the room where the Senate met for years.  Here is the VP chair:

We also got to see the old Supreme Court chambers, which they used for years before they got their own building, the room for the Ways and Means Committee, a chandelier that Congress bought from a Baltimore church for $1,500 in the 1950s that is currently worth $6M, and stand in the spot where a representative strategically  placed his desk so that he could hear the whispered secrets of the opposite political party due to the acoustics of the room.  It was hard to grasp that we were standing in the building where so many important decisions had been made.

The weather forecast is 71 and sunny today, then 50 and cloudy/rainy for Friday and Saturday.  Our plan was to take advantage of this beautiful weather and do everything we could outdoors today.  But our feet were already tired from walking, so we rented bikes!  It took us forever to find the rental place, and by the time we found it we were really ready for those bikes.  Here's an awesome picture of Mark:

The first thing we came across was the Washington Monument.  This is the tall pointy statue.  It is surrounded by American flags at the bottom and further out are beautiful parks.  I hope we get to have a picnic here sometime this trip.

We then stumbled across the WWII Memorial.  This was quite beautiful.  Those pillars around the water reflect the 50 states.

Next up was the Vietnam Wall.  This is the long black wall that has the inscription of each soldier who made the ultimate sacrifice in this war.  It is understated and I imagine it would be quite touching if you had lost a loved one in that War, but we didn't have any names we were looking for and it was packed with people, so we moved on fairly quickly.

The Lincoln Memorial was next.  This is at the West end of the National Mall.  It is HUGE.  It was very cool to stand in the same spot where MLK Jr gave his "I Have a Dream" speech.

It was a bummer to find out that they are doing some rehabilitation work on the Reflecting Pool that you typically see when looking out from the Lincoln Memorial.  This was our view instead (note the Washington Monument in the background):

Next we headed around the Tidal Basin.  We were really glad for the bikes at this point.

The Tidal Basin is surrounded by cherry blossom trees that were a gift from Japan in 1912.  There is a big spring festival this time of year called the Cherry Blossom Festival.  It is supposed to be one of the best times to visit because it is so beautiful.  The beauty cannot be doubted, especially around the Tidal Basin where the trees are planted:

However, I'm not sure I agree that it is the best time to visit.  Maybe if you're into photography or flowers.  But if your main goal is to see the sites, it is so crowded that it can become frustrating.  Brett told us they usually process about 2,000 visitors a week and for the last few weeks it has been 10-12,000.

The opposite side of the Tidal Basin has the FDR Memorial.  This Memorial is really spread out and really pretty.

The unemployment lines that were common during FDR's presidency:

Next up was the Thomas Jefferson Memorial.  We were pretty pressed for time at this point, so we basically rode up, snapped some pictures, and left.

Then we rode our bikes back so fast that I was a little worried about falling into the Tidal Basin (there's no barriers)!

After we returned our bikes, there was more walking.  We found that little house at 16th and Pennsylvania:

This was about the only view you could get.  We tried walking around to see other angles, but they were completely blocked.  We are standing in a really beautiful park, President's Park, across the street.

From here we navigated the subway station to get back to our hotel.  The subway station is really safe, clean, and easy to navigate if you spend a few minutes understanding how it works.  We freshened up at our hotel and then had dinner at a "Cheers" type bar called Black Rooster Pub.  We met a girl from St. Louis who really liked to talk a lot.

And that was our first day in DC!