Washington DC trip

[CanAmCharlotte 0]

Hey fellow VJers,

A few weeks ago I mentionned I was planning a trip to Washington DC just ahead of my naturalization interview (less than a week to go now....gulp). Incidently, our third anniversary fell on the last day of the trip so it was a bit of a celebratory thing too. If you're interested, a recap of my trip is below.

I don't know if 'beautiful' is a word that I would use to describe Washington but there was certainly a surprising amount of greenery. I guess I would say it's majestic, imposing, and stately. There are absolutely no sky scrapers in DC which was a total surprise to me. I guess I never thought about it before. I just assumed every major city in the world has sky scrapers. On the other hand, it had some of the largest buildings I've ever seen in my life and many took up an entire city block. I think those are called 'footprint' buildings or something.

Our hotel, The Hotel Rouge at 16th and M Street, was pretty funky; definitely what you would call a 'boutique' hotel. It had red walls in the hallway and leopard print carpet. The rooms were spacious and comfortable with platform beds and huge red leather headboards. The service was excellent, no complaints. At only five blocks from the White House, we had a fairly central location. I thought $152/night was actually very reasonable for what we got.

Three of the museums we visited are part of the Smithsonian complex: the Museum of Natural History; the Air and Space Museum; and the Museum of American History.

One of the exhibits we enjoyed at the Museum of Natural History was about minerals and gems. We saw the Hope diamond which is about the size of a grape and 45.57 carats. We saw many other cut gems that were many thousands of carats each.

My sister and I toured the Museum of American History separate from my husband and brother-in-law. We saw an exhibit of first ladies' inaugural gowns dating back to the early 1800's, Julia Childs' kitchen, and a special exhibit of Abraham Lincoln that included the actual top he was wearing when he was shot and killed at the Ford Theater. Oh and there was an interesting exhibit of the history of the American flag.

At the Air and Space Museum, we touched an actual moon rock and saw the command modules from one of the Gemini missions as well as Apollo 11. We took a two hour tour given by a former NASA engineer but the real surprise was that one of our fellow tourists taking the tour had been in the Navy and physically worked on the Apollo lunar landing modules. He was able to give us some of the inside scoop that we would never have had otherwise. I also liked seeing the actual plane in which Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier (the 'Glorious Glennis'). Remember that from the movie 'The Right Stuff'?

We took the subway to the Arlington National Cemetery where we saw the grave sites of John, Robert, and Ted Kennedy as well as Jacqueline Kennedy. We timed it perfectly and saw the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Talk about precision!

On our last full day we visited the Holocaust Museum which was an incredibly powerful and moving experience, almost too much to handle. I have read many, many books on the Holocaust and have watched more documentaries and movies than I can remember but still, I learned a lot. From there we visited the Washington Monument, the World War II Memorial, and the Lincoln Memorial. Again we timed it well and as we approached the Vietnam Memorial, a Park Ranger was just beginning a talk about the design which gave us a great appreciation for how it came to be. I remember how controversial it was when the winner of the design contest was announced. Unbelievably, she was a 21 year-old student of Chinese descent. Despite the controversy, she was able to successfully defend her design. It had also been a school project and her professor had only given her a mark of B+ for her work! (She said he hated everything she did.) BTW, they were shooting a scene from HBO's 'Big Love' in front of the Lincoln Memorial when we were there and I got pictures of Bill Paxton an Chloe Sevigny. Our timing on this trip was impecable.

We walked by the White House several times as it was on our route to most places. It is a magnificent structure to see in person and heavily guarded around the clock. The street is blocked off to cars but you can get fairly close if you're on foot. I noticed people jogging by without even looking at it (I assume they live in Washington) and wondered if it ever occurs to them that they are passing the leader of the free world or if they're just so used to it, they don't give it a second thought.

Another stop for picture taking was the Capitol Building where the Senate and House of Representatives convenes. There was some type of Muslim celebration taking place on the back lawn but it was marred by a bunch of religious yahoos on the perimeter yelling at them and basically telling them they were all going to hell. I found it all quite disturbing and disrespectful.

We made our way to Georgetown two of the four nights for dinner and even on Sunday night, the sidewalks were jammed with students (presumably from Georgetown University).

I would recommend at least a four night stay in the city and even at that, you would only see a small portion of what the city has to offer. I would definitely put it on your To Do list if you haven't been there before.

[JillA 2]

Thanks for the review of DC! I've been wanting to make a weekend trip sometime in the future, it's only about 3 hours away for me. Lots of good advice and insight!

[Flames9_RN 358]

Lots to do and see downtown DC, one can make it a real cheap holiday. We rarely ever go down that way though, hate dealing with traffic and tourists,lol