Matt’s company holds an annual awards event in Washington D.C., and he had to go along to manage all their social media. That was a pretty good excuse for a trip to revisit our nation’s capitol, four years after our last visit.

We dropped Roy off at his birdsitter’s and went to the airport. We had the usual 25-minute hop to Miami, grabbed an empanada from Half Moon for lunch, and then got on our flight to Reagan National. When you’re flying to DC, accept no airport substitutions, because getting into town from Dulles or BWI sucks.

Plus Reagan is just so attractive. (It’s nicer on the inside.)

We bought week-long Metro passes for $36 and hopped on the train to Farragut West. Our hotel for the event, the Mayflower, was a few blocks away. Oh, and it was overcast, in the mid-60s, and raining. That was a big change from Key West.

The Mayflower is a giant, fancy old hotel just south of Dupont Circle. Our room was very nice, but the lack of coffeemaker annoyed me to no end. Our plan was to work from the room on Wednesday before the event, and no coffee meant having to go out for it in the morning.

We checked in, met a few of Matt’s coworkers (his department had totally turned over since the last time he was in Minneapolis, so that meant he was meeting them for the first time, too!), and then went to get dinner. We walked a half-mile or so in the rain to Founding Farmers, where we found a line and an hour-plus wait. It was already fairly late, so we went to wander back in the general direction of our hotel to find a restaurant. We came across Irish Whiskey Public House, which had a decent-looking bar menu, so we went with that. Afterwards, we headed across the street to Teddy and the Bully Bar, a great little cocktail place, for a couple of drinks before bed. We headed back around 10, since we had to work in the morning.

The next morning, we got up, put on real pants (this is a travail for people who work from home, you know), and walked over to Peet’s for coffee and scones. It turns out there was lobby coffee at the Mayflower, but Peet’s was stronger. I took the desk to work, and Matt took the bed. It was a fairly uncomfortable and crowded arrangement, but it was only for a day. The plan was for me to go work at Peet’s when he went to go do event-setup stuff around noon, but that ended up being delayed and we stayed in the room all day, except for a quick lunch walk to Shake Shack for lunch.

At 3, he headed downstairs, and I finished up work and changed into fancy clothes. I don’t get a chance to wear a dress and heels very often anymore! I met more of Matt’s coworkers in the hallway by the ballrooms, where I was assigned to help out at the check-in table. They trained four of us on the check-in equipment – tablets and small label printers for making nametags, so it couldn’t have been easier – and we got to work. After about an hour, it was time to head to the main event. (Bob Dole was a guest speaker at the pre-reception party, and they rolled him past our table in his wheelchair on the way out. He waved and said thank you to all of us, which was very nice.)

We were at the staff tables in the balcony for the awards ceremony, which started at 6:30. Mike Rowe was one of the speakers, so I took a bit of video for my sister, who’s a fan.

The event was very well-done, and the speakers were great. A couple of them made everyone cry. We had dinner, dessert, and coffee, and the event wrapped up around 8:30. Matt was busily taking photos and posting to Twitter and Facebook the entire time, and his preparation made it all go smoothly. Afterwards, we said goodbye to everyone (many of whom were flying back to Minnesota first thing in the morning), went to the room to change, and headed out for a beer.

We walked over to ChurchKey near Logan Circle. Matt was wearing a shirt from J Wakefield Brewing in Miami, having joked that they’d appreciate his beer nerd shirt. When we looked at the menu, the only beer from anywhere south of the Carolinas was one from Wakefield. Since it’s a tiny brewery in Wynwood, we were kind of shocked about that. (We ended up seeing them several places in town. Which is great, because they make really excellent beers.)

It was raining pretty hard when we left, so we got to walk back to the hotel with wet pants and shoes. At least we’d remembered umbrellas!

Thursday morning, we got up and checked out. The Mayflower was nice, but we weren’t going to go paying the rack rate for the portion work wasn’t reimbursing. We left our bags at the bellhop stand, grabbed a quick breakfast at Peet’s, and headed to the Metro to the Smithsonian. It was still raining, but it had lessened a bit.

Last time we were in DC, we’d had lunch at the National Museum of the American Indian (it was great), but we hadn’t had time to see the actual museum. We also wanted to see the brand new National Museum of African American History, but apparently entry tickets to that sold out right away. While we were in town, I kept checking availability, even setting an alarm for 6:30am when they opened the daily site, but they were gone right away. We’d have to save that one for next time.

The American Indian museum is really well-done, and it was very quiet during the day. We had another excellent lunch in their cafeteria before heading off to our next nerdy stop, the National Building Museum.

The building itself was pretty incredible. It’s hard to capture the size of it in photos. We got a brochure for the self-guided tour and went up to the top level to start; there are a few exhibits in the building, but not many. The one on American households and how building has evolved over time and regionally was pretty great, as was the collection of paper pop-up construction books. The store was really good, too, but we resisted buying everything in it.

Then it was time to switch hotels before our dinner reservations. We took the Metro to the Mayflower, got our suitcases, then got back on the Metro to the National Zoo stop. The Marriott Wardman Park was conveniently located next to the Metro stop (which has one of the longest escalators we’d seen, taking almost 2.5 minutes!), but it was also at the top of a very steep hill. Rolling the bags up it was not that fun at all.

We checked in, and I was happy to find a coffeemaker in our very nice (and far more spacious) room. We freshened up, changed into nicer clothes, and got back on the Metro to the stop near Verizon Center.

So, we really like Chef Jose Andres, and have made a point of visiting his restaurants whenever possible, in both DC and Vegas. We had been trying to decide where to dine on this trip when Matt discovered the Tour de Jose, which is a small-plate tasting at four of his restaurants in one night. How could we possibly turn that down?

We started at Zaytinya at 6:15. (It’s the Greek/Mediterranean-focused restaurant we’d dined at on a previous trip.) We arrived a bit early so they set us up with a bar table and glasses of sparkling wine, then moved us to our table in short order. Then the food started arriving, and a very long restaurant adventure began. We even had ‘passports’, which the hosts took at each restaurant so they could paste in a copy of our menu for that location.

I’ll include a few of the photos here, but the entire set of our million dishes is here on Flickr, with descriptions. I have the writeups of everything Matt had, but as the vegetarian in the group, mine diverted somewhat from the main offerings. I wish I remembered more details, because everything was amazing.

At Zaytinya we had a trio of dips with pita, a couple different wines, brussels sprouts, these ‘air bread’ bites, and octopus. Matt was worried he might be served octopus because he hates the idea of it, and there it was. He ate it and liked it, too! Just not the tentacly part.

What we learned quickly is that they will serve you not just the small plates but a side of bread in some form with every meal, plus all you want to drink. Don’t eat the bread, no matter how tempting it is. You’ll just be sad about it later. (I only partook in the pita at the first restaurant with the dips, and I was *still* sad about it by the end.) It feels horribly wasteful, but just let it go.

Our host came by toward the end and let us know we had five minutes or so before moving on to the next place. We gathered our things, he took our passports, and he led us over a few blocks to Jaleo. He told us about all the new Jose Andres restaurant plans around the world, and it was kind of incredible.

At Jaleo, the tapas restaurant, he handed us off to a new host/server. We got a table by the window, were handed sangria (I usually hate sangria, but this was amazing), a basket of bread that we dutifully ignored, and then the food started arriving again.

We had pan con tomate, gazpacho (another previously-hated food), manchego with wine-marinated green apples, Iberico ham, pastry cones with some awesomely stinky cheese and quince paste, and the most mind-blowing dish of all: Ferran Adria’s liquid olives. They’re the closest we’ll ever get to El Bulli, after all. Plus – this may be a theme here – we both hate olives. But these were amazing.

Oh, and there was also eggplant with honey, and a glass sneaker that was invented by Salma Hayek’s brother. There was a long story behind it, due to the porcelain hand service at Barmini. This was Jaleo’s response, which meant that Matt got to eat croquetas out of a shoe.

And then it was off to Oyamel. It’s the restaurant we were originally planning to visit before learning about the Tour de Jose, so I was excited to go there. The problem was that I was already pretty full.

Our server there was great. He made us tableside guacamole with serrano and tomatillo (why hadn’t I thought of that? It’s genius), with fresh tortillas AND a gigantic basket of tortilla chips, which I refused to even look at. We had margaritas with ‘salt air’ that were amazing. Then there was a shrimp dish for Matt and brussels sprouts for me, which were really delicious. By the time they showed up with a taco for each of us, I was seriously feeling sick. It was all I could do to have a bite of it.

I also felt awful about wasting that much food. We joked about grabbing umbrella bags in each restaurant and filling them with the leftovers. We’d have been walking around with enough food for 30 people.

When the tacos arrived, I went downstairs to use the restroom, partially to just get a break from all the food. Even walking around that little bit made me feel somewhat better, which was good because we had yet another restaurant left to go. Unreal.

We crossed the street to China Chilcano and were seated right away. It was already close to 9pm at that point – we’d been dining since 6:15 – so this restaurant was a lot quieter. The hostess there was fantastic, too. They made us feel extremely welcome.

Thankfully, the dishes there were much lighter. We had a vegetarian version of their ceviche, made with a variety of mushrooms, jicama, radishes, and hominy. There were also small cilanto and vegetable dumplings with sesame, and pisco sours. Then it was time for the final round – the dessert. It was spectacular.

The one on the left is basically a dulce de leche with various forms of passionfruit meringue on top. (The passionfruit cuts through the sweetness like you wouldn’t believe – it was amazing.) The dessert on the right was a crispy spiral cake with molasses ice cream, caramelized bananas, and chocolate cream with the cocoa Anthony Bourdain sources from Peru.

There was coffee and port, and then we thanked the staff there about a hundred times before wobbling off back to the Metro. We’d have to walk a million miles to make up for that dinner, and thankfully we did a pretty good job of that in the next couple of days, too.

We’ve had some really incredible meals from some very famous chefs before, but we’re both pretty sure that was the best meal we’ve ever had. It’s an experience for sure.

The next morning, we got up and walked up the half-mile hill to the National Zoo. I hadn’t been there since I was a kid.

We were mad that the bird house was closed for renovation, but we found some of its residents hanging out outside. I realized later that the only animals I photographed at the zoo were the ones that live in South Florida. I like what I like, you know?

We saw most of the zoo (except for the monkeys, because monkeys are creepy) and then were very hungry because it was 2pm. We walked back to the Metro and rode over to Eastern Market, where we figured we would grab lunch from a stand and eat outside. It’s billed as one of the best markets in the country, so we had high hopes.

Eastern Market turned out to be not that spectacular. It’s one big hall with several booths (butchers, sandwich shops, cheese vendors, produce stands, etc), but there’s not that much there. It’s nothing compared to what we’ve seen in most cities. They have outdoor vendors on the weekends, so possibly that makes it more impressive. It just… wasn’t. We walked down the street to get some pizza at Seventh Hill Pizza instead. That was really good, and we ate outside on the patio.

From there, we went back to the Metro and rode over to the National Archives. It was another spot we hadn’t visited since we were kids, so we decided to go make sure that, while the current government wasn’t adhering to anything in our founding documents, the Constitution hadn’t actually been torn up or anything. We only had to wait in line for 20 minutes or so, and were able to get inside and into the rotunda fairly quickly. It was good to see those old pieces of parchment again, and they had a new exhibit on American history that was pretty interesting.

Even though it was only open for another 90 minutes, we decided to go over to the Museum of Natural History. We got to see the entire oceans exhibit on the first floor, which of course is very relevant to our interests. We swung by the shop before they closed, then headed to the Metro back to the hotel.

At that point, we’d walked approximately a million miles and were getting sore. I had blisters on my toes, because I am absolutely unused to wearing real shoes anymore (or walking long distances, since we bike everywhere now!). Key West spoils you.

We hung out in our hotel room for a bit, then decided to go over to Adams-Morgan to a few places we’d really enjoyed on our previous visit. One of the annoying things about the neighborhood is that it’s a long walk from the Metro, but Matt had noticed a sign about a circulator bus at the bus stop right outside the Metro station. It advertised $1 fare to several locations in Adams-Morgan. Our Metro cards didn’t cover that, but who cares? It’s a dollar bus ride.

The bus was waiting there at the stop as we walked up. We tried to put our dollars in the fare box, and the driver told us there was no charge today. I’m not exactly sure why, but that was awesome. We ended up talking to two different people on the bus about Key West, and I think they were both excited to visit there someday. (The guy Matt was talking to already had plans to visit in a few months.) We said goodbye to them and hopped off at the next stop.

Our dinner plans involved Smoke & Barrel. I’d freaked out about their awesome vegetarian bbq options there four years ago, and this was no different. The vegan ‘spare ribs’ are fantastic.

From there, we walked down the hill to Jack Rose for drinks. It was much, much larger than we’d remembered, and now had a couple additional bars in the building. We decided to stay in our ‘usual’ spot, at the main bar. The bartender said they had the largest whiskey collection in the country, and I believe it.

After a couple drinks there, it was time to head back to our hotel. We found the bus stop for the circulator return trip, and were the only people on the bus with a very friendly driver. It was like if Uber was $1, and not an awful company!

Saturday morning, we grabbed a quick breakfast in the hotel lobby and then took the Metro to the Newseum, another new-to-us museum. As it’s not Smithsonian-based it was also the first museum we actually had to pay for, and it was worth it. It’s a really nice setup in a modern building, with six levels of exhibits. It’s well-designed for those of us with short attention spans and crowd-annoyance.

While the exhibits are all sponsored by major media organizations, it felt very unbiased and straightfoward in telling the history of news reporting. I’m always a little twitchy about presentations on things like 9-11 or the history of the FBI and terrorism, but I thought they did a really excellent job. They dispense with the flagwaving and just present the facts about what happened. Seeing all the 9-11 footage again was gutwrenching.

They also had my favorite sign ever:

There was a good exhibit on music’s influence on politics and culture. The artifacts were pretty excellent. Here are the original ‘Fight the Power’ lyrics, presumably handwritten by Chuck D.

The Newseum has a really good view from their top-floor balcony overlooking Pennsylvania Avenue, too.

Hey, the sun came out for a few minutes! The rain stopped! Amazing.

After we were done there, we walked over to Chinatown for lunch. The ramen place we wanted to go to had an hour wait (at 2pm? For lunch??), so we went to On Rye instead. They had a smoked beet and gouda reuben that was fantastic.

We decided to return to the Museum of Natural History to see the rest of the exhibits. We walked over there and found a long line to get in, which should’ve been our first warning. It only took about 20 minutes or so in line, though, so we waited. The place was absolutely packed with at least 40,000,000 kids (how did they fit them all in there?? I don’t know, but they did! And most of them were screaming!). It was hard to see anything with the crowds, and the ungodly amounts of slow-walking irritated the hell out of me, plus my feet hurt.

I enjoyed the exhibit on African history, mostly because it was uncrowded and I could actually see things. We also decided that it wasn’t that fun to see a bunch of taxidermied animals when you’ve just seen the live versions at a zoo.

Bally likes geology, though. Here he is in a pothole.

We left the museum about 5 and headed back to the hotel to sit around and figure out our dinner plans. We decided on a restaurant/brewery near Nationals Park called Bluejacket, because they had a really nice-looking menu. We realized that the Nats game was in the 7th inning, so we should probably hurry to get there before the rush.

We got out of the Metro station as people were leaving the game, but it was still going on. There was a 45-minute wait for a table, but we didn’t care because we’d had a late lunch. We found a spot by the bar and ordered beers. Within half an hour, the place was so packed you could barely move. Conveniently, I got a text just then saying our table was ready.

We had hush puppies, mini ‘everything’ pretzels, and I had a really good burrata salad. By the time we were done, it was dark and the place had mostly cleared out. We walked to the Metro and rode to our last stop near the White House, to get a manhattan at Old Ebbitt Grill. It’s an institution.

(My favorite part of being there was a tour group coming through, led by a guy in a very disheveled revolutionary war uniform. He did not look like he was having a good time at all.)

We headed back to the hotel and finished packing up before heading to bed.

We were in no rush the next day, so we slept in late, checked out, grabbed breakfast at the hotel again, and rolled our bags to the Metro with the 2.5-minute escalator ride. We got to DCA around 11:30, dropped our bag at check-in, and went to get lunch at Ben’s Chili Bowl. Conveniently, they had vegetarian chili dogs!

We had very pleasant flights home, with a half-full flight to Miami, and a quick hop to Key West. We picked up Roy from his sitter, and were home in time for dinner.

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?

[If you want to just view the entire Flickr photoset for this trip, here’s the link!]

doesn’t really inspire the respect it used to.

at the corcoran

zero-mile marker. i like the dude posing, the security truck, and the garden party at the white house.

the j edgar hoover fbi building

the capitol lawn says ‘penis’.

capitol steps

library of congress reading room

You’re not supposed to take pictures in the reading room. You can only get to it if you’re on an official tour, and then you’re supposed to be very quiet and respectful and take NO PHOTOS. Well, we attached ourselves to a tour group and ducked into the viewing room. It was a group of fifteen-or-so Russians who couldn’t have cared less about the rules. The very loud tour guide described the scenery, and the gist of her talk was ‘Americans are all so wealthy, they can afford to have buildings like this everywhere’.

supreme court building

The security guard in front of the Supreme Court got extremely nervous when I laid down on the steps to take photos.

the northern end of the tidal basin

The cherry blossom festival was at its peak that weekend. We couldn’t have been there at a better time. It was warm, sunny, and crowded. So unbelievable. If you ever have the opportunity to be in D.C. at that time of year, you must go. You won’t regret it.

My photos can’t really do it justice.

One of the places we saw that day was the National Gallery of Art, which I’d always skipped before. The regular collection wasn’t terribly thrilling, except for the impressionists. Also, they had an exhibition of Cézanne’s work in Provence that was very cool to see.

I should also mention the food that day, since it was beyond awesome: one of my favorite DC restaurants is Andalé, totally incredible Mexican food. Before dinner, we wandered and shopped in Georgetown (mmm, Diesel), and then had dinner at Papa Razzi, to which I had been before. The food was great and the drinks were better. I rode back to the hotel on the metro with my head on my knees, giggling.

edgar allen poe house

Did you know the Baltimore Ravens are named for the poem? It had never occurred to us. So, Edgar Allen Poe’s house is in kind of a dodgy neighborhood. The rest of the townhomes are boarded up, but I guess they’re doing a lot of ‘renewal’ in the area. Which is code for ‘fixing things up and selling them to white people for a lot of money’.

I stopped to use the bathroom at a gas station in this neighborhood. The supernice guy at the counter passed me the key, which was attached to a spatula, through the bulletproof-glass double-plate window and pointed towards the back room. I had to roll a mop-bucket away from the door first. There was blood on the wall.

I hope I didn’t get herpes in there.

The harborfront area in Baltimore has been very much renovated in recent years and looks identical to the tourist-zones in any other city: Honolulu, Santa Monica, Houston, Chicago. It’s bright and depressing.

We drove back to the district and the parents dropped us off at the National Museum of Health and Medicine at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. We had to go through security, which included undercar-mirroring and ID checks. It was awesome. My dad, a former federal agent, got really squirmy about it.

The museum is located a couple blocks inside the complex. It’s a very unassuming-looking building. We went inside and the dudes at the counter took my picture and made me a sticker-badge. I fell in love with them immediately, because they were super-laid-back Latino guys with gothic-script tattoos up their forearms. I bet they and the army guards didn’t have much to say to each other. They were giggly, and we stood around talking with them for a while before entering the museum, which we had decided to visit for the sheer creepiness factor. It’s very highly rated in Roadside America.

lincoln’s bullet

these masks represent the expression on the faces of people who have been through chemo

Because they’re really creepy, I’ve put most of the photos from the museum over here. I’ll warn you that they’re pretty icky and include a lot of dead, malformed fetuses. If you have a low threshhold for gross, I’d skip it. FYI, the ones at the top are now officially known as the SKELETON BABIES FROM HELL.

Oh, despite what the tour books may tell you, the museum is only about 6-8 blocks off the metro. They warn you to take a bus or cab. You should only do this if you’re lame, because it’s an easy walk.

In the evening, we had dinner at Rosa Mexicano, an even better Mexican restaurant, known for their pomegranate margaritas. Hey, I discovered that I liked good tequila. And that, rightfully, is the end of THAT particular story.

fdr memorial

I had never seen the FDR memorial, either. It’s very extensive, and very serene. Also, it’s surrounded by cherry blossom trees, on the south side of the tidal basin.

in the breeze, the petals were falling like snowflakes

the parents!

not a great photo, but i don’t think many people realize you can see the capitol all the way from the tidal basin.

african-american civil war memorial

We ended the day with the other building of the National Gallery of Art, and saw an amazing Dada exhibit. It gave me fond memories of my Russian-constructivist days.

In the afternoon, we headed to Reagan airport to catch our flight that was delayed by over 6 hours because of a huge storm. It left at the last possible minute before cutoff, and we got home around 12:15am.

I skipped over a ton here, but I think at this point I’ve seen pretty much everything in Washington DC. It’s an odd city. However, the cherry blossom festival is absolutely worthwhile. Therefore: SEE IT.