What a Trip!

 We tried.  We really tried.  We said we were going to relax on this trip, not try to see everything.  See Scott relaxing in the hotel lobby?  That was the first five minutes of the trip.  The rest of the time, we walked.  And walked and walked and walked...AND walked.  Thursday, after posing for this relaxing picture, we walked all over our neighborhood, DuPont Circle.  All the embassies are in that area and it was fascinating to see their flags flying outside some of the most posh and stately buildings I've ever seen.  After familiarizing ourselves with our area, we hopped on the metro and went to the National Mall. We got our bearings and fit in a couple hours at the National Gallery of Art.  We were going to just walk through briskly, but you can't do that when you're looking at Picassos and Rembrandts.  It was incredible!  We also went to the top of the Old Post Office for an overview of the city and checked out the Natural History Museum before taking the metro to dinner.

 Our camera was misbehaving that first day, so my only picture of my cousin Kristine and her husband Sin is blurry.  We met them for dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant in a neighborhood called Adams-Morgan, followed by dessert at a hip joint across the street.  It was great to see them, and to talk about everything from kids to...kids.  We loved every minute of our time together.  Krissy lived in D.C. when I was in college in Indiana and I visited her several times, seeing the various places she lived, hearing about the different stages of her life - internship at the White House, working for the USO, law school at Georgetown, meeting her husband - all the while, getting to know the D.C. area.

 We saw hundreds of columns.  We climbed thousands of stairs.  We got around by metro, and there were a suspicious number of escalators not working.  By day two, both of us took a deep breath at the top of each enormous, broken elevator and ouched our way down, our calves burning.  If I sat down to rest, my body started to close up shop.  After resting, I couldn't move my legs at all.  I could tell you where we went, but it might be easier to tell you where we didn't go.  Let's see...we missed the Native American Museum.

 A relative?  National Gallery of Art

The Kennedy Center.  We went there for a free concert on the Millenial Stage.  It's a world-class building and there is a free concert every night of the year.  We couldn't pass that up.  Wicked was playing that night and we decided to wait in the stand-by line.  We narrowly avoided accidentally buying two tickets from scalpers to some obscure Checkov play for 80 bucks apiece, thinking they were for Wicked.  There was a torrential downpour that night and we spent some time under an awning outside the George Washington University Hospital with a bunch of interns.  Most tourists probably don't get to do that!

 We saw the White House (from far away), The Washington, Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, World War II, Vietnam, Korean War and Jefferson memorials.  We even saw the Martin Luther King, Jr. monument through the fence, and it wasn't even open yet.  Nevertheless, it was really powerful.  My favorite monument was the World War II because a group of veterans was there.  Some of them were in wheelchairs, posing in front of parts of the monument that were significant to them.  We were humbled to be there with those men who understood far better than we ever will what it means to be a patriot.

 Here is a man to whom we owe everything, a WWII veteran.

 We took time to read the inscriptions on the walls at the Lincoln Memorial

Vietnam Wall

Korean War Memorial

 The new Martin Luther King, Jr. Monument

 Roosevelt

 Jefferson

 The Holocaust Museum was overwhelming.  We knew it would have an emotional impact, but we wanted to see it.  Immediately upon entering, I picked up a picture of the children of the Holocaust.  One child was so small, maybe a year old, and I broke down.  Scott and I bawled our way through the exhibits, trying not to imagine what it must have been like for parents, children, grandparents, everyone, to endure such a time.  It is horrific to imagine not being able to protect your child, to lose everything.  The museum is a masterpiece.

 We dined twice at restaurants one block from the White House, Cafe du Parc and The Occidental.  The hostess at Cafe du Parc would size people up and either seat them or tell them they had to have a reservation.  She turned down all the overly tousisty-looking folks.  Scott and I barely passed her test.  She turned us down and then I said, looking at the empty tables, "But this was our plan."  She seated us saying, "Well, since it was your plan..."  Good thing we were dressed up!  We took pictures of all of our food, but I'll spare you. This one was cold salmon and cucumber gazpacho. Lucky for us, it was restaurant week in D.C. and many expensive restaurants had a prix fixe menu at three courses for $20.11 for lunch.  We ate some really good food in beautiful settings.

 Arlington Cemetery

 John F. Kennedy's grave

 Trolly to Alexandria, VA

 Worlds collide:  A Starbucks in a 17th century building, the site of our much-needed afternoon glass of juice.  Cobblestone streets are a killer on the knees!

 Alexandria

 We even took a ferry ride from Alexandria to Georgetown at night.  This is the Kennedy Center and Georgetown.  We couldn't get a reservation at Founding Farmers, which everyone had recommended, so we walked from Georgetown to our hotel on DuPont Circle and collapsed.

 The last day of our trip, we sauntered (OK, hobbled) up to the Eastern Market and walked around the Capitol Hill area, enjoying the morning. There was a great vibe there.

 Loved the architecture.

The buildings were closed, but from the Eastern Market, we walked around the grounds of the Capitol Building and the Supreme Court.

We strolled through the Botanical - uh- building? I loved it.  We couldn't pass it up.

 About halfway through the trip, Scott decided D.C. would be the perfect place to take Freestone on his ten-year-old trip.  We went inside the Air and Space Museum strictly for research purposes for Freestone's trip.  I said I had no interest whatsoever in a lame replica of the Wright Brothers' contraption and a bunch of freeze-dried space food, but once I got inside, the museum was so mind-bogglingly incredible, we had to drag ourselves out.  I guess that's why we ended up seeing and doing so much the whole time instead of relaxing, reading and resting.  Everything in Washington D.C. is so well done, so inspiring, so rich in history and so humbling and awe-inspiring, you want to see it all.  You have to!

Maybe that's why we got into a bit of a frenzy at the end, feeling the pressure of having only a couple of hours left in such an incredible city.  We hit several of the Smithsonian museums, including the Hirschhorn (not my fave) and the buildings with the African and Asian art.  Toward the end, I really thought I could see the entire Portrait Gallery in three minutes and Scott didn't want to do that, so we split up.  He went to the hotel to retrieve our luggage while I schlepped up to the Portrait Gallery where I earnestly tried to admire hundreds of famous paintings in 20 minutes.  We met at the metro stop where we caught the airport shuttle, and just like that, our relaxing weekend was over.  Except for TWO trips through security for me because of a snow globe we tried to take on the plane.  After heroically going back through security to check the snow globe, I found out it would cost $25.00 to check a bag!  You all probably knew that, but I didn't, because I never check luggage.  I couldn't save the little snow globe, which was Golda's gift, and I couldn't give it away to anyone without getting arrested.  I don't think I've ever hated terrorists so much.  I handed it over to a sweet little security agent my second time through and she promised to love it forever.  Or sell it and buy drugs.  At any rate, I got a Cinnabon and everything was better.

Our trip was perfect, even though we didn't stick to our plan.  I'm glad we dined so well, I'm glad we walked so much, I'm glad we didn't miss anything that was humanly possible to see.  I loved spending time with Krissy and Sin, I loved the interrupted hours and hours spent with Scott, the energy of the city, the beautiful architecture, the reminder of what makes our country great and what makes up our history.  I loved soaking up the urban energy, dreaming about what our lives would be like there, observing people on the metro and doing whatever we wanted to do.  But I also loved coming home to our amazing kids.  We sure missed them! They are our national treasure!  Thanks to our trusty staff, Coco and Chauffeur Bill, Uncle Trajan, Aunt Jennie and Sarah!  Golda and Ruby couldn't have done it without you!  :)  Plan on us going on another trip sans kids in about five years!