Colby and I decided last minute to head out of town for an extra long weekend to celebrate my birthday!
Destination: Washington DC
I absolutely love that city! It is so clean and gorgeous! Most big cities have a grungy feel to them but DC doesnt. The metro stations are really clean (nothing like the NY subway stations that smell awful!) and the streets arent littered, and everyone is super friendly! If it wasnt for high rent/housing costs I would totally live there!
Anyways... So we headed out early Thursday. We luckily missed the huge snowstorm by a couple of hours and were greeted with 6-8 inches of snow!
Our plan for Thursday was to go to the temple but the power was out so we couldnt do that. Instead we took a nap and relaxed then headed over to Colbys old mission companion Joseph Harrisons place which just happened to be a few miles up the road!
We went and ate Thai with him and his Fiancee then went back to his place to play Monopoly Deal! It was a lot of fun!
Friday was the day I had a ton of stuff planned! We didnt get to do everything, but pretty close!
To start the morning off we toured the capitol building
Inside the dome "George Washington Rising to the Heavens"
Painting or Sculptures??
Its hard to tell, but it is a painting!
Some of the beautiful mosaic tile around the capitol
Inside the original House of Representatives meeting room
The statue of North Carolina.. can't remember who he was!
The Desks in the original H of R meeting room
After the wonderful tour of the capitol, we took the underground tunnel (to avoid the snow and because its cool!) to the Library of Congress! What a neat place! We started a tour here but were so hungry we couldnt finish! We asked the greeters where we should eat and he led us underground again (thank goodness, it was still snowing!) to the Madison building cafeteria so we could grab a bite to eat! This was the cheapest meal we ate besides the fast food, and it was delicious! Funny part, the guy that was leading us had a crippled foot and was on arm crutches, he was flying! Colby and I could not keep up with how fast he was going!!! We kept looking at each other in disbelief!
After we ate we headed over to the holocaust museum. What an amazing museum. We happened upon another tour going through the special exhibit "German Propoganda". It went through from the beginning to end of the Nazi era and how the propoganda affected the German people and what their mindset was. It was very insightful. I really enjoyed this museum, but for some reason I didnt take any pictures.. In fact my picture taking become pretty non existant the rest of the trip. It was too cold outside and too many "no Photography" signs inside!
So after all that we headed to the Washington Monument for the tour! We were able to go up inside the monument and look around!
The capito building and all the smithsonians "National Mall"
The White house and one of the ellipses, believe it or not there used to be several baseball fields in that huge circle!
The Lincoln Memorial and WWII memorial
The Jefferson Memorial
It was such a fun day! After the Washington Monument we headed back to the hotel to freshen up and go back to Josephs house where I was making pizza! We played life while we waited for the dough to rise and watched V for Vendetta (edited version)! Another fun night!
I did not have an itinerary for Saturday. I had some things that I wanted to see but nothing scheduled. So we headed out and went to the national archives to see all the old documents. I think one of the coolest was the magna carta and the cipher from John Wilkes Booths pocket the night he killed Abraham Lincoln! We decided to get lunch before we headed to the national gallery of art. We found this fancy mexican restaurant, checked out the prices and decided it was okay. Well it was just that, okay. If anyone know me they know that I am a plain food type of girl. Salad with just cheese and ranch, tacos, meat lettuce cheese, simple sandwiches... etc. Well none of this food was umm normal... I ended up settling for the smallest quesadilla I have ever seen in my life that had some part of a pig in it... Colby had 2 chicken tacos, that were filled with guacamole. The problem with that is that he is slightly allergic to avocados. SO the two whole avocados that were in his tacos did him no favors and he was miserable the rest of the day.....
We went to the Art museum for a little bit them headed to the zoo to check out the animals.
This was not at the zoo. THe squirrels are so tame and will come right up to you if they think you have food! THis one was basically climbing up his jacket to get his food! I almost caught one by holding my hand out but he figured out I didnt have any food...
Animals at the zoo... We sat and watched the gorillas for a while. They are very entertaining! THe brother and sister were swinging around and the silverback (pictured) just sat their. And thats the momma in the background.
We finally made it back to our car via longest ride ever on the metro! found a wendys, and headed back to the hotel where we layed around and did nothing the rest of the night! It was awesome!
I am so grateful that we were able to go on this last minute trip! We had a great time and made some great memories!
Once again I have written a book... Oops!!!
