I left work around 11am, picked Matt up at home, and we drove to an offsite airport parking lot just south of the airport. Usually we’d get a cab or park at Terminal 2 for short trips like this, but we had a $10/day coupon. That’s cheaper than a cab!

The shuttle picked us up at my car, and we were at the terminal within ten minutes. Add to that the fact that we got to use our brand new Trusted Traveler numbers, and our total time from the car to our seats at Surdyk’s Flights past security was 20 minutes. Incredible.

Our flight was delayed, presumably due to the sequester, so we had plenty of time for lunch and a beer. Since they weren’t yet boarding when we got to the gate, we climbed up to the observation deck, which was conveniently located nearby.

Our flight was uneventful, and we landed nearly on time at Reagan National. If you’re going to DC, don’t bother with Dulles or Baltimore… National is where it’s at. It’s basically in the Potomac River, and it’s on the Metro. Those other two are most definitely not.

Matt and I bought tickets for the Metro and hopped on a train heading south to Alexandria. I could see our hotel from the station, a half-mile walk away. (I knew that before I booked it, but it was worth the extra travel time since it was super-cheap.) When we got to the station exit, we saw a van sitting there with the hotel logo on it. A shuttle? WIN. We hopped on board with two other people and got a ride to the hotel instead.

The Courtyard by Marriott was exactly as you expect… clean, business, oriented, and friendly. The rooms were very recently updated, so they were especially nice for a place well under $100/night. I’m a fan. We unpacked our bags (we were traveling light, so that didn’t take much effort) and headed right back to the Metro station. The shuttle wasn’t out front, so we walked back instead. It only took 10 minutes.

In the hotel we’d done the math on Metro cards, and decided it was a better deal to buy the week-long pass even though we’d only be there for a little over three days. It’s $35 and includes unlimited rides, with a surcharge for rush hour. (We ended up paying less than $1 total for ‘surcharges’, so yeah, it’s worth it. The Metro can be expensive.) We bought those and boarded a train into the District.

We were ready for dinner by the time we arrived half an hour later, so we headed right to Matt’s first restaurant selection: Daikaya. It’s about 2 blocks from Verizon Center. We got seats at a shared table for eight, with the two sides facing each other. It would’ve been kind of strange except for the divider in the middle for condiments. The menu is fantastically simple in the ramen-part of the restaurant: you have four options, plus some sides and beverages. (One of the beverage options is “buy a six-pack for the kitchen”.) I got the vegetarian ramen, of course, and it was fantastic, especially with chili sprinkled all over it. Going there early was also a really good plan, because by 7:30 there was a line forming. It would’ve been worth it regardless, and they got food out amazingly fast.

Full of noodles, we set off in search of one of life’s other needs: beer. We’d done our research ahead of time, and had a list of good options together with notes about the Metro stops near which they were located. A few of them were near the restaurant (that area north of the Archives stop seems to have a ton of really great food and drink now, in addition to all the incredibly touristy stuff), so we decided to try those first. It was about 8pm, and we knew we weren’t going to be up for a very long night.

We found R.F.D. Washington right past the Chinatown gate. All evidence pointed to it being the bro-iest bro bar on earth, from the Irish pub styling to the cavernous warehouse of an interior (not to mention a fair number of bros already there), but their beer selection was unbelievable and the bartenders were great. We found seats along the side of the bar, where we could keep an eye on both the Nats game and the patrons, and dug into the beer list. I tried two from DC breweries (Three Stars, whose gose was excellent, and DC Brau) and one from Virginia (Devil’s Backbone).

We hung out there for a couple hours, talking and watching sports, and watched the place start to fill up. A couple of girls repping for Goose Island came in to hand out samples, and since we were sitting at the end of the bar, we witnessed how complicated that process can be. Their first trays were full of 312 samples, which we gladly took advantage of (I needed something to take ibuprofin for my neck, because I’d slept uncomfortably on the plane). When those were empty, the bartender said they’d run out the supply. They picked a different beer, and had to pay for it in advance before the bar would hand it over. They made a few rounds, then disappeared until later when I found them sharing a handicapped stall in the women’s room, drunkenly moaning about their man problems. AWESOME.

Then there was the bachelor party. There were 12-15 guys in the 25-40 year old range, all wearing the standard button-down shirt and jeans. We decided they were from Boston or somewhere near there, based on their really annoying accents (the yelling over each other didn’t help). They came up individually to buy beers, complained about the prices (the prices were actually shockingly low for a bar in the middle of a large city), and exclaimed about what an awesome deal they’d gotten at the hotel. We wondered which ones we’d see laying in the gutter in Chinatown later. (When I returned from the bathroom, the bartender was lining up 12 Jager bombs for them. Even he was laughing about how incredibly bro they were.) When our tab arrived, we had to double-check to make sure they’d charged us for everything, because it was so unbelievably cheap.

We decided to take a break from the bachelor party entertainment and check out a cocktail bar nearby instead. We were kind of underdressed for The Passenger, especially on a Friday night, but I didn’t care much. If there’s one thing I know about classic cocktail bars on that order, it’s that your service from the staff depends almost entirely on your drink choices. It doesn’t matter how rich you are, if you order a Long Island, you suck.

The place was packed. I angled for a place near the server station at the edge of the bar, and waited for a free bartender. While we stood there, Matt pointed out the fact that they had Fernet on tap. And the thing is, when you’ve had multiple highly entertaining experiences with Fernet, from the skull shotglasses in Boston to our DJ BFF in Los Angeles and the time we had it sitting on the floor of Roma Termini station after the longest day of our lives… well, you order it when it’s on tap. When the bartender finally got to me, I placed our regular cocktail order, plus the two shots.

She brought those first so we could do them right away, then made our drinks. That’s good service right there. We took our drinks and went to stand against the wall amongst the crowd.

After a few minutes, we noticed people leaving a little enclosure nearby, which seemed to have two bench tables in it. We grabbed one of them, and a server came in to finish up with the other group sitting in there. We hung out for a while and didn’t see any sign of her again, so we weren’t sure if they were doing table service anymore. (We didn’t need food anyway, but the wait at the bar was long.) After a while, our drinks were empty and we decided it wasn’t worth the effort of waiting in line and giving up our table, so we went to go close the tab.

The same bartender came to help me again, and suddenly there were two half-shots of Fernet there with our check. See what I mean about service? It’s good to know awesome bartenders are the same everywhere.

We headed back toward the Metro station, with a quick stop at Walgreens along the way. The Chinatown Walgreens was more like a gas station than a regular Walgreens; it was almost all food and drinks. We picked up a six-pack of DC Brau for our hotel room, and went to get the Metro. 25 minutes later we were at our Eisenhower Avenue stop, so we walked back to the hotel and enjoyed a beer on the couch before bed.

And let it be known that DC Brau makes some really good beer. We’d only chosen it because the cans were easier to carry!

The alarm on my phone forgot to go off Saturday morning, so we got a later start than intended. (The extra sleep was nice, though.) We got on the metro around 10:30 and rode to L’Enfant Plaza. Our intention was to see as much of the National Mall as possible, until our feet fell off.

(Spoiler alert: our feet almost fell off.)

The thing we noticed first was the incredible number of food trucks lining the streets that crossed the mall.

I decided on falafel, and Matt got a Philly cheesesteak. We took our food to a good viewpoint on the mall, and sat in the grass to eat. It was fantastically nice outside.

After our early lunch, we walked toward the Capitol. The mall was crowded with tourists, as always, including massive groups of teenagers on school trips.

Bally loves America, obviously.

Even after that mile or so, I was starting to realize that my choice of shoes wasn’t the best for walking. Since I’d only brought a backpack, I didn’t want to carry two extra pairs of shoes, and as we had dressy plans later that night, I took a pair of sandals that I’d never walked any distance in. It was too warm to wear sneakers, so that was my choice. DUMB.

We walked down the other side of the mall, skipping most of the museums. Since it was really nice that day and was supposed to rain Monday, we figured we’d cover some of them later. We did decide to go into the Air & Space Museum: initially it was because I had to go to the bathroom, but it was a good excuse to wander around and see things. It’s still my favorite (the annex in Virginia is even better… why don’t they have shuttles there?).

We stopped into the castle, because I hadn’t been there in years. We picked up a few souvenirs (which I got a discount on, since we get Smithsonian Magazine), then went to check out the rest of the building. They have a fascinating array of totally random artifacts in there.

From there we headed toward the Washington Monument. My feet were trying to kill me, but that wasn’t going to stop the walking. The monument was still covered in scaffolding because of earthquake repairs.

We had a deadline for our tourist activities that day, because we had cocktail and dinner reservations later. That meant we had to be on the Metro by 4pm, in order to go back to the hotel, change clothes, and ride back. (That made me regret having a hotel so far away just a little bit, but it was so much cheaper than the district hotels, it was worth the effort.)

We figured we didn’t have time to walk all the way down to the Lincoln Memorial, since we’d only covered half the mall in that amount of time. Also, my feet were killing me. We headed toward the White House instead, because it was only half a mile or so.

The side streets to the White House are all completely blocked off by security gates and guards; I feel like that wasn’t always the case, but I’m not positive. You can’t get anywhere near it except at the usual spot, directly in front. We followed the crowds, passing by a group of anti-abortion protesters with huge grotesque photos all over the sidewalk. I was diplomatic and didn’t curse at them, though I did thank the gun control protesters for being there.

The plaza in front of the White House was full of police, tourists on Segways, and random protesters. We took our photos, and Bally snuck inside the fence. We then headed toward a much-needed break at the Old Ebbitt Grill, one of the ten oldest bars in America, and haunt of many a corrupt politician.

I asked at the server stand if we could sit at the bar, and they told me there were FOUR of them to choose from. We went into the back room and found an awesome old bar with nautical decor, and exactly the kind of bartender you hope to see: a loud, sarcastic old guy in suspenders.

I ordered a Manhattan, and took his recommendation for whiskey: WhistlePig Rye. I was not disappointed.

We hung out there for a while, resting our feet and enjoying listening to the people around us. There was a very loud, tipsy group of older ladies from the east coast at the end of the bar who were flirting with the bartender. We shared a Negroni, then got our check and headed to the Metro station to ride back to the hotel.

We had to walk from the station to the hotel, but we’d walked so much at that point we really didn’t notice the soreness much anymore. I knew I had blisters, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. We changed quickly, and decided to request the shuttle so we didn’t have to walk back. The driver was there quickly, and we were soon back on the train heading downtown.

Our destination was Jose Andres’ Minibar, the cocktail-focused side of the new Barmini (where the president and first lady had dined recently.)

We love Jose Andres from his TV appearances and his restaurants in Las Vegas. Since DC is his home, we were very excited to visit his new cocktail bar. We made reservations far in advance to be sure to get in, and the rules were intimidating: there’s a $50 fee for no-shows, you can only have your seats for 2 hours, and you have to press the doorbell at a nondescript door 5 times to get in.

We arrived a little early and found the door. We stood there for a very long time before the hostess came to get us. She was a tall, gorgeous lady dressed perfectly, and I was instantly glad we’d made the effort to dress up. She took us through another door, and we walked into a small room with a bar that sat 8 people, and several other creative seating areas. One of them had a wicker hanging chair, and another had a couch made of tufts painted to look like cactus. Everything was shiny white and modern, and there was a two-way mirror into the restaurant portion. The bar was totally open, so that we could see everything that was going on. It was amazing.

I wanted to be a tourist and take pictures of everything, but stuck to just the one, subtly. We ordered cocktails off the extensive menu, and watched the bartender make them in very elaborate fashion. (Their mixing technique was very Toby Maloney-esque.) They had a massive variety of glasses in vintage styles, seemingly for every style of drink. And they had fancy gold mixing tins and jiggers! We were impressed.

We had three drinks apiece over the couple hours we were there, and they were uniformly great. We also ordered a couple appetizers: Matt had a foie gras banh mi slider (which was delivered in a tiny cardboard take out box a la McDonalds), and we shared a truffle grilled cheese. SO GOOD. We learned some new things from the bartender, too.

While we were sitting there, the awesome hostess was quietly telling the staff that someone important was coming in (I couldn’t catch the name), and they were to be treated as if they were anonymous. EXCITING! Every time the light flashed over the door to indicate a new visitor, we subtly peered at them to see if we recognized them. As far as we could tell, nobody famous showed up while we were there, but we’re also pretty bad at recognizing celebrities.

Finally it was time to head to dinner, so we got our check and went to use the bathrooms before we left. The hostess led us out, and asked me about my Gemini tattoo, since she was one, too. Her birthday is a day before mine on June 7th, so I asked if she knew that that was also Prince’s birthday. She was pretty excited that we knew that fact.

This is the wall in the bathroom, by the way. You never, ever have to worry about running out of toilet paper there.

We walked a few blocks up the street to Zaytinya, another Jose Andres joint, where we had reservations at 8. There was a crowd out front, in the lobby, and the place was absolutely monstrous. It had the look of one of those fancy downtown chain restaurants that we generally avoid, but we quickly found out that was a misconception.

Our table wasn’t quite ready, so we went to the bar for cocktails. Again, I was glad we were dressed up… most of the crowd there was fairly fancy. After 20 minutes or so our table was ready, and we were hungry enough that we already had plans for the bread basket. The menu was an innovative mix of Lebanese, Greek, and Turkish food, and it all looked delicious. Plus there were plenty of vegetarian options (including an entire vegetarian mezze page). On our server’s recommendation we ordered three mezze apiece, including a cheese plate. One of my very important life rules: always order the cheese plate when you’re out for a nice dinner.

We ate the flatbread and they brought more, so we used that for cheese. There was still a piece in the basket, but they brought another one. We had to put it far away from us so we didn’t risk a bread basket avalanche. The small plates started arriving, and everything was excellent. We had a glass of Raki to celebrate, too.

We were getting full and still had one dish left on the way, but it was starting to look like it wasn’t going to appear. At that point, we were hoping it didn’t, since we couldn’t have eaten it anyway. Finally the server brought our check, and we breathed a sigh of relief, especially since we weren’t charged for it. Our entire fancy meal was only a bit over $100, too… we were shocked.

Leaving, we found the streets crowded with Capitals fans celebrating the team clinching a spot in the Stanley Cup playoffs. I felt like I was amongst my people! We decided to walk a bit and see what was nearby for cocktails, since my blisters were killing me. Only a few blocks away, we saw a marquee that beckoned us: Cuba Libre. A tropical-themed rum bar? I don’t even know why that would appeal to us.

The place was pretty full and we didn’t want to ask for a table, so we went to stand by the bar near an empty seat next to a questionably-taken seat. The lady there said her friend had left, so we scored the last two seats at the bar. Their menu was primarily mojitos, as expected, and they boasted a giant rum list. We got mojitos, which were good but waaaay too sweet.

After a while, they started clearing tables from the dance floor, which was surrounded by a low fence. Then they cleared the tables outside the dance floor, from the rest of the restaurant. Finally, they started taking bar stools. The guy who took ours told us that the entire floor was for dancing (and he did so in such a joyful way, it was awesome). We stood there waiting for the music to start, and decided to enjoy a rum flight in the meantime. We of course made the bartender climb a ladder to get them, which made the other bartender declare us big spenders. (The rum wasn’t even that expensive, they just seemed to be a mostly-mojito crowd.)

By the time the first song was over, the dance floor was full. It was fantastic, and unlike anything that ever happens in Minnesota. Plus there were some dancers there who really knew what they were doing.

We hung out there for a while watching the dancing, and finally decided to go elsewhere to be able to sit down again, since my feet hurt. We walked over to a Belgian place several blocks away called Brasserie Beck, but walked in just as they were closing. We used their bathrooms and then decided to head back to the hotel, since we had beer there, and it was midnight.

As much as I wanted to see what the Metro was like at 3am, I didn’t really want to experience it in person. Our train was fairly empty, and everyone riding out to the Alexandria area seemed to be asleep. I limped back to the hotel, and we enjoyed a DC Brau on the couch before bed.

We got up Sunday morning and headed back down to the National Mall, to cover the half we’d missed on Saturday. We got off at the Smithsonian stop, which put us about a mile from the Lincoln Memorial. My blisters still sucked, but wearing sneakers helped. Plus it was cooler outside, so we were comfortable in warmer clothes.

I don’t think I’ve seen the WWII Memorial before, though it looked really familiar.

The water was empty because they were doing work between it and the reflecting pool.

Blue skies would’ve been nicer, but at least it wasn’t raining!

Bally continued loving America:

I always forget how gigantic the Lincoln statue is. It’s seriously impressive.

His view isn’t bad, either.

From there we walked over to the Korean War Memorial, where a Korean news show was filming a documentary about it. The announcer was awesome.

I like this memorial because it’s quiet and out of the way.

Plus it’s kind of haunting.

We passed the Vietnam Memorial, too, but didn’t stop long because we’ve both seen it before. As with the previous day, we had plans that kept us moving!

We stopped at the Einstein statue to recreate a photo Matt’s parents had taken when he was a teenager. Bally joined him this time.

I realize this makes it sound like we were only out walking around for 15 minutes, but it was really a few hours. There’s a lot of ground to cover in DC, and the west end of the Mall is poorly represented by the Metro.

The nearest station was Foggy Bottom about a mile away, so we headed that direction, into the GWU campus. We boarded a train and rode to Metro Center, then transferred to the green line with the rest of the entire Nationals fan base.

(Metro tip: if you know a train will be crowded, go to one of the end cars. They’re always slightly less packed.)

Fifteen minutes later, we all disembarked a few blocks from the stadium, down by the dockyards. It’s a pretty interesting neighborhood, and reminded me somewhat of the waterfront in Baltimore.

The stadium was really nice. It’s fairly new, and pretty similar to Target Field. I was thrilled to see that the racing presidents were hanging out in the plaza for pictures! William Howard Taft, America’s fattest mascot, was new this year, and we were pretty excited about it.

We were fairly early, so we had time to walk around and see the place. The upper level concourse was totally open, and offered great views underneath the giant screen. The best restaurants seemed to be there, too.

Matt was set on Shake Shack. We debated about it for a minute because of the huge line (as compared to anywhere else in the building), but decided it would be worth it. AND IT WAS. They even had a veggie option, which was a huge portabella mushroom stuffed with cheese. It was amazing.

After our quick lunch, we walked down a mile of ramps to the first level of the stadium. Our seats were in the last row of a section down the 3rd base line, and they were pretty great. Once it started raining halfway through the game, we were really glad to have them, because they were under the overhang.

It was Nationals-Reds, and somehow we ended up flanked by Reds-fan couples on either side. I wasn’t really cheering for anyone in particular (except for ex-Twin Denard Span), so that was fine. The game was a decisive Reds victory, and people started leaving fairly early. The rain encouraged that, too.

We headed out shortly before the end of the game, figuring the Metro wouldn’t be too crowded by then. We had to stop into the store so Matt could by a long-sleeved tshirt, because it was actually cold outside! It was a huge change from the previous day. By the time we left, though, it had at least stopped raining.

The Metro was indeed really empty, so we boarded around five, switched trains downtown, and rode up to the stop nearest Adams Morgan, a.k.a. DC’s hipster-est neighborhood. It was about a mile walk to our destination, so we were glad that the two places we’d picked for cocktails and dinner were at least right down the street from one another. Our feet hadn’t exactly recovered yet.

Our first stop was Jack Rose Dining Saloon, which had just opened at 5pm. Matt had read about their incredible whiskey selection and cocktails, and that was no joke. Three walls of the sizable restaurant were lined with bottles from all over the world, and the very expensive ones were behind bars. We grabbed seats at the bar and pondered where to even begin. With cocktails, of course!

After we finished, Matt decided it was time to sample some of the whiskeys we’d never had before. We paged through the extensive list, and decided on a few things, including a Corsair quinoa whiskey (because we’d met and loved the Corsair guys in Vegas), and a hopped whiskey from Charbay. I figured I’d hate the hops one, but it was amazing.

As usual, once we’d talked to the whiskey expert for a while, we developed some cred. It would’ve been nice to stay longer and take advantage of that, but we needed food. While Jack Rose had that, there was a BBQ place just down the block that had vegetarian options. So, basically, heaven.

Smoke and Barrel wasn’t terribly crowded at 7:30 on a Sunday night, so we got a table right away. The place used to be an old punk bar that served a lot of vegan food (much like our beloved Triple Rock), so the new owners put in a BBQ restaurant that still tried to hold true to that tradition. They did so in excellent fashion.

I ordered vegan spareribs with roasted jalapeno cheddar grits. The spareribs were fantastic, but the grits were so good I thought about making out with them (Matt would’ve been fine with it). Their beer list was really good, too, so we had a couple of those with dinner. At the end I was too full to finish my grits, which was just shy of a national tragedy. I still think about them fondly.

It was only around 9:30 at that point, but we were tired and wanted to get up early the next morning. We decided to grab beers and head back to the hotel, so we stopped at a grocery store on the mile-long walk back to the Metro. When we arrived, Matt had to go to the bathroom, so we walked around the weird shopping area there that was just shutting down for the night. We snuck into the side door of a Chipotle unnoticed, and while I was waiting for him in the hallway, an employee came barreling out of the kitchen, swearing his head off about customers. He saw me there, stopped cold, and started apologizing profusely. (There was something about how white people needed their burritos at 10pm, which was hilarious.) I told him several times it was no problem, since obviously we were there stealing the use of their bathrooms.

We hopped on the Metro and rode back to Alexandria for our traditional beers on the couch before bed. We couldn’t finish the DC Brau, so hopefully the cleaning staff took advantage of it after we checked out.

It was raining Monday morning, so our plan to save the indoors stuff to the last day had worked out well. We rode down to Gallery Place, had a fast breakfast and coffee at Dunkin Donuts, and then walked over the the International Spy Museum. I’d been there several years ago, and knew Matt would enjoy it.

I like the museum for proving that all the insane spy stories you’ve heard are realistic. They have a million examples of mini guns, suicide devices, hidden messages, and bombs. It’s laid out in such a way that a person like me with a short attention span can stay entertained the whole time, and the entire lower level is dedicated to James Bond (and how realistic his devices are). We’re planning to visit the Mob Museum in Vegas soon, and part of my interest in it is the fact that it’s run by the same company that built the Spy Museum.

After a couple of hours there, it was time for lunch. I’d heard that the Mitsitam Cafe in the National Museum of the American Indian was excellent, so we headed that direction. Even taking the Metro part of the way, it was a long walk.

I was surprised to walk into a cafeteria-style restaurant, but then we started looking at the menus and realized it was, in fact, excellent. There wasn’t a ton of vegetarian food there, but I did fine. The food represented all manner of native populations in the Americas, and it was uniformly delicious. The place is really expensive, especially for a Smithsonian cafeteria, but it was worth it.

I wished we had more time to see the museum, but we really wanted to get to the American History museum before leaving DC. We walked over there, and upon entering saw signs all over indicating that one entire side of the building was closed for renovation. At least that gave us something to focus on, because there was no way we could see everything!

I love the transportation sections, especially about railroads and cars. Matt likes the ships. Bally likes hanging out with the vegetables.

There was also a featured section with some of the favorites from their collection. Kermit the Frog was there!

We also noticed that the Smithsonian has Nine Inch Nails’ Pretty Hate Machine in their collection. I owned that tape. Sigh.

We made the most of our little time there, and then rushed to the Metro by the National Archives when it was time to go. (Google Transit directions are THE BEST. Seriously.) We rode back to the hotel, passing through National Airport as we had every day there, and managed to catch the shuttle just as it picked up another passenger. We asked the driver if he would swing back through after dropping the guy off at the other hotel, and he said he would. We got our bags from the front desk, the shuttle returned, and we were quickly back at the Metro station to head to the airport.

Thanks to the shuttle ride, we were early enough to the airport to be able to get dinner before leaving. We checked menus at a few places, and everything except for TGI Fridays was a seafood place. Fridays it was! (In their defense, their airport locations have several decent vegetarian options – that was not the case years ago – and incredibly friendly staff. So I can’t disparage TGI Fridays too much.) We got drinks and split a couple appetizers while watching planes on the tarmac.

We sped through security once again thanks to PreCheck, and boarded our flight shortly after. We had a brief layover in Detroit, where we sat watching the NBA playoffs on one of their gigantic TVs.

Back at MSP, we headed directly to the remote parking shuttle, which was sitting there waiting. Thanks to carry-on luggage and our efficient driver, we were home from the airport within 45 minutes of landing. How often does that happen?

My very short review of TSA Precheck: GET IT, IT’S AWESOME. REALLY.

Now for a longer review.

Matt and I recently applied for Global Entry, which allows pre-approved members access to expedited customs and immigration processing when entering the US. That’s really nice, and the technology is cool, but the main reason we wanted that is because it also entitles users to membership in TSA Precheck. That’s the domestic version, which gives you access to expedited security screening at 40+ airports (with more being added).

For Global Entry, you have to pay a $100 application fee, tell them every detail about your life, and if you’re approved, you’re invited to an interview at a nearby airport a couple weeks later. While the interview seemed intimidating, it wasn’t. They already have your background check, so they ask a few basic questions, take your picture and fingerprints, and show you how to use the customs kiosk. While it takes another few weeks to be issued your Global Entry card, you get your TSA Precheck number right away.

We had our interviews Wednesday, and went home to update our Friday reservations with our new numbers (they’re called Trusted Traveler numbers by the airlines). The boarding passes printed with “TSA PRECHECK” at the top, so we knew we were set.

Here’s how it works:

When you get to the airport, head to the Trusted Traveler lane at security. You’ll know it because it’s the one that doesn’t have 200 people standing in it. (It’s usually the same lane used by super-elite frequent flier members.) Scan your boarding pass on the scanner and if it beeps, the agent will wave you through. Go through security. Keep your shoes on, your jacket on, and your toiletries in your bag. (I think they only think they were requesting was that people empty their pockets.) Grab your bags and celebrate not having to rush to your flight! The end.

To summarize, the PROS:

1. It’s super-fast. Like 2 minutes at most fast.
2. You don’t have to take your shoes off.
3. You can keep your laptop and toiletries in your bag (though you do still have to adhere to the 3-1-1 rule, because they may check).
4. You don’t have to take off your jacket, belt, watch, jewelry, etc.
5. At the airports we visited, they were using the oldschool magnetic scanner, and not the I-can-see-you-naked scanner.
6. If you put your Trusted Traveler number in your airline profile, it’s automatically added to your boarding pass automatically.

The CONS:

1. It’s not available at all airports yet, but they’re adding new ones all the time. Here’s a current list.
2. It’s only usable if you’re flying a major U.S. airline. Currently that list includes American, Delta, United, US Air, and Alaska. If you’re flying other airlines, it’s regular security for you.
3. TSA Precheck itself is invite-only for very frequent fliers, at the request of the airline. However, you can get around this by signing up for Global Entry, as I noted above.
4. There’s a possibility that you’ll get caught in a random check and have to go through normal security.
5. If you’re  one of the tinfoil hat types, this isn’t for you. Global Entry runs background checks daily, and you’re given government-issued tracking numbers.
6. You can’t murder anyone or commit any other felony, or you’re out of the program. But there are other reasons you shouldn’t commit a felony, too.

Matt and I made it from the parking lot, on the shuttle, and through security in under 20 minutes on Friday, and security flying back from DC was equally fast. If you’re a frequent traveler, this is absolutely worth the money.