In the first part of October, Brandi and I took a long weekend trip to Washington, DC, with our friends Spencer and Chris. I feel like a lot of people end up there at some point early in their lives, but somehow neither Brandi nor I had ever been there. Chris, on the other hand, grew up in the area and still has family there, so it was nice having a built-in tour guide.
Our first outing was to the Library of Congress.
I’m a library nerd, so the one thing I knew I definitely wanted to try to do while we were in DC was visit the Library of Congress. And it turns out that they host a happy hour every Thursday evening! It also turns out that this happy hour is quite popular—the line for drinks was quite long. (Full disclosure: I used my phone’s “magic eraser” function to remove bystanders from a couple of the photos above.) A lot of people, in fact, were getting drinks and then immediately getting back in line for their next one. We just went through once, and then took the opportunity to wander around and see the place, which is stunning. Being in the main reading room was something I’ll never forget.
The next day, Friday, was a heavy walking day. We started at our hotel (Motto, in Chinatown), grabbed some Starbucks along the way, and hit the National Mall (and then some): the Washington Monument, the World War II Memorial, the Reflecting Pool, the Lincoln Memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Korean War Memorial, and the MLK Memorial. We also popped into the National Museum of American History to see the original Star-Spangled Banner and checked out a couple of exhibits at the National Museum of Natural History.
That evening we went to the U Street Corridor/Logan Circle for dinner. We started at Izakaya, a restaurant specializing in Japanese small plates that Spencer and Chris have visited several times, and it was amazing. From there we procured cocktails from Left Door (amazing), the Crown & Crow (meh), Aslin Beer Company (very cool vibe; befriended a dog), and the Alchemist (my personal favorite) before calling it a night.
Saturday was not a particularly touristy day; we spent most of it with Chris’s parents, and his sister and her boyfriend. But this included dinner at Mission, and so we got to see Nationals Park (sadly, the regular baseball season had just ended, so we couldn’t go inside) and visit a few places in the Navy Yard area. At the Dacha Beer Garden, as you’ll see below, our waiter asked if I wanted my beer “tall or short” without specifying what that meant, so I ordered “tall” and got an enormous glass boot full of beer.
We ended Saturday with a nightcap at our hotel’s rooftop bar, which is where I captured the image above.
Sunday was our last day, but we did sneak in a bit more sightseeing. First up was the White House! Just the outside, unfortunately—Chris contacted our representative to request a tour, but that was at a time when it seemed like the government was going to shut down, and he never got a response. But seeing it from outside was still very cool, and honestly, for our first trip to DC, it was enough. Our last stop was the National Portrait Gallery for the presidential portraits. Then we had a quick lunch at Cava before making the long drive back to Ohio.
Being in DC for the first time was kind of surreal, especially at first. Even though I had never seen these places before in person, they were all so familiar…it felt like stepping into a TV show. It was amazing to be surrounded by so much history and culture, and I know this is a place I will want to revisit again and again. I already have a short list of things I’d like to do (a White House tour; seeing Congress in session; a ballgame at Nats Park; so many museums), and I have a feeling that it would take several visits before that list would start to shrink instead of grow.
And it occurred to me after we got home that we didn’t take any pictures of the Metro. Brandi and I were totally enamored; it made getting around so easy. From the time we got into town on Thursday afternoon through when we left on Sunday, we walked and/or rode the Metro everywhere we went. Loved it. Time to step up your public transportation game, Columbus.
The Commaphile 