Washington DC Trip

       When I found out we were planning on taking a trip to DC I was so excited. I had never been to the East Coast before so I wanted to see as much as I possibly could. We had planned on visiting DC just as a day trip. We were going to wake up early, drive there, see a few sights and drive back home, but we finally all sat down as a family and decided that we would enjoy two days of DC more than two days of Williamsburg. We found ourselves a hotel to stay in for the night, and started planning our trip. Now I honestly don't think there is any possible way to see EVERYTHING there is to see in DC in only two days, but we sure wanted to try.
     
        Eric and Amanda were crazy and left at like four in the morning to head up there. I honestly don't know why they left that early, but they were adamant about it, so they did. The rest of us slept in till like six maybe and left then. From where we were it was a good 3 ish hour drive so we did want to leave early enough that everything would be open in DC but just barely starting to open. When we got there, it was so amazing to me. I had seen pictures of all of the sights, but I had never seen the buildings in real life.

       The first stop that we made was to the Jefferson memorial. When we actually got to the Jefferson Memorial, I didn't expect it to be so big. I have seen the building thousands of times on the back of the nickel, but in real life it is a whole lot bigger. I didn't expect so many stairs, or for the statue to be so huge. I know the Lincoln statue is massive, but I didn't really know how big the Jefferson statue was until I was standing underneath it and I looked like an ant.

       Once we finished there we started walking up the street to go to the National mall, but I got held up at the Holocaust Museum. I have always been fascinated with the history of world war two, and while I was there I couldn't resist going to the museum. It was truly an amazing experience. Each of us were given a little passport with an actual Holocaust victim's name. Throughout the museum we read about the victim we were going through for, as well as a lot of history about world war two. At the end you could light a candle for the victim as a continuous memorial. It was a really cool and very powerful experience. Paul, his mom, and I were the only ones that actually completed the whole tour. The rest of them headed over to the Smithsonian of natural history.

     When we got out of the Holocaust Museum we headed over to the Museum of natural history to meet up with everyone else. We had about an hour before everyone wanted to leave for lunch so we had to hurry through. Paul and I didn't get so see a whole lot, but we looked at some of the dinosaur exhibits, some of the fossils, and the gems. It was incredible to see all of the different kinds of gems and crystals they had in the exhibits. Once we left the museum we went back to our car and had some lunch. Then we traveled over to the national zoo. Amanda has an obsession with pandas and really wanted to see them, (which was totally fine with me because I like pandas too).

      We were told that the zoo did zoo lights and so we thought they would be open a little later into the evening so we could see the lights, but sadly for us, the zoo lights ended on the 1st of January, and here we were on the 2nd of January. Darn. We missed it by a day. We got to the zoo when it was starting to get a little dark so we really had to hurry as to not miss the cute pandas. We looked at all the outside enclosures but didn't see any animals! I was so sad. It was so cold in DC that all of the animals were in there inside enclosures and we didn't know where they all were. We found the panda house and visited the pandas for a little bit, but I guess that the chinese are VERY strict about what happens to the pandas. They have a tight schedule that has to be followed. So the panda house closes exactly at 5 every night. We got to see them but only for a short minute of time. After we got out of the panda house we visited the elephants. But these weren't any elephants, they were Asian elephants. :) They didn't look too Asian, but they were!

     We kept walking around in the darkening evening and went to the small mammal house. Sadly all of the indoor houses closed at 6ish, so we didn't get to see a whole lot. But we decided that since we saw the panda's and the elephants we had to be content with that. Plus it was getting cold and we were all getting really hungry. We walked to a cute little coffee shop to wait for our cars. Julie had a friend from DC come to the zoo with us and she was kind enough to buy us all hot chocolate while we waited for them to return with the cars.

     We got back to our hotel, cooked us up some dinner, and relaxed. Paul and I went to the hot tub for a little bit to get out of the chaos of six adults sharing one room with two babies. After we were relaxed we went back to the room to get some sleep. We had lots of plans for tomorrow so we needed our sleep.

       In the morning, the first thing that we did was drive to Arlington Cemetery. We tried to arrive at the cemetery right at eight to see the changing of the guards at the tomb of the unknown soldier, but we got stuck in rush hour and didn't make it till closer to nine. But we figured we could take our time, look around, and at nine we would see the changing of the guard. I didn't think that the cemetery would be as amazing as it was. It was so beautiful, and peaceful there. The changing of the guard was a very solemn experience. It was one of the most memorable parts of our trip.

       After the cemetery, we went to the WWII memorial, the Vietnam memorial, and of course, the Lincoln memorial. I was so excited to go to the Lincoln memorial. I have seen it on the penny all my life, and seen pictures of it, and wow, in person it is even better. Lincoln just sits there with eyes that can almost stare into your soul. He certainly seemed like an amazing man. We took lots of pictures and then  left to head to the Smithsonians.

       About half way there, I decided that while I was so close to the White House, I would really like to go and get there as close as I could. Unfortunately for us, Congress was getting sworn in on January 3rd so the White House was pretty heavily guarded. So I didn't get to see it as closely as I wanted to. While we were heading over to meet the rest of the gang we stopped at the old post office. They let people go up into the bell tower and look around at the sights. It was really cool to see DC from up so high. After lunch, we ran to the national archives to see the constitution and bill of rights.

                                                                                By the time Paul, Julie, and I finished at the National Archives it was about lunch time. Paul and I wanted to go out to lunch for a date so we split with Julie and found a sweet indian place that is like Panda Express only with organic indian cuisine! It was fantastic!!! If  they ever have a restaurant named Merzi come to town, surely try it because it was some of the best indian food Paul and I have had.

       After lunch we headed to the Smithsonian of Air and Space. The others were there for a little bit longer than Paul and I so we didn't get to see a lot, but the exhibits on planes were really cool. We also looked at the shuttle exhibits, and the solar system stuff. I wish that we would have had more time, but I decided that the library of congress would be so much cooler. We gave ourselves a tour of the library of congress and I was in awe. The architecture was incredible! And to think that so many books are housed there is just amazing. It was just awesome.

       After the library of congress we started the 3 hour drive back to Virginia. Before we got too far we stopped at cracker barrel for dinner. I had never eaten there before so that was a new experience for me.  After two long days of non stop touring, I was seriously pooped. I think I slept more than half of the way back home. DC was great. I have loved all the traveling Paul and I have done, and I am excited for all of our adventures to come! We still have one more day left in Virginia and hopefully it will be lots of fun!