Sunday, June 27, 2010

Washington D.C.: Day 1 (Friday)

Todd & I got up bright & early on Friday morning to head to Washington D.C. for David & Lauren's wedding. Todd works with David and we've hung out with them on several occasions, including last year at this time in St. Thomas for Derek & Emily's wedding. I also went to Lauren's bachelorette party last month. Paolo, another one of Todd's coworkers and friends, came along with us for the 6 hour drive.

We pulled up around 1:30 PM to the Omni Shoreham, checked in, and threw all of our luggage in our room before heading out to see some of the sights. We have a great hotel room with a balcony that has a view of the pool as well as the gazebo.

Omni Shoreham in Washington D.C.

View of the pool from our balcony

View of the gazebo and hammocks from our balcony
We headed across the street for quick, delicious lunch at Open City before taking the metro to the National Mall. Since it was 90+ degrees outside, we opted to each lunch inside although the tables out front looked nice.

Lunch at Open City....very cute decor!

Todd, Paolo, and I walked around the National Mall and saw the Capitol and Washington Monument. Since it was so hot, we decided to head into one of the Smithsonian Museums, the National Museum of American History.

Todd & I in front of the Washington Monument

Before heading inside

We saw so many cool things! I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves. I definitely found this museum more interesting than most because a lot of it was pop culture artifacts.

Michelle Obama's Inauguration Dress

Todd testing his ability in wringing laundry like in the old days

Dumbo from Disneyland

Abe Lincoln's Top Hat

Dorothy's Ruby Slippers

Nastia Liukin's leotard from the 2008 Beijing Olympics
Kermit the Frog

Excited to see the Julia Child Exhibit

Julia Child's Kitchen

After walking around for several hours and starting to get tired, we went back to the hotel for naps and relaxation. Since most of the other people we knew attending the wedding were either coming into town late Friday night or Saturday afternoon, the three of us walked a few blocks from our hotel to find someplace to eat for dinner. We decided to try something a little bit different and went to Lebanese Taverna. We started with a caraft of white sangria before trying grape leaves and some babah ganush with warm pitas. For dinner, I had hummus & veggies and a house salad. Boring I know, but I don't really eat a lot of meat and there weren't a lot of vegetarian options that sounded appealing.

Todd & Paolo with their sangria
We ended dinner around 10:30 PM and went back to the hotel bar for a few drinks (for the guys). It was a long day that began around 5:00 AM but we had fun and packed a lot in.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

so cool! what a fun start to the trip. i haven't been to d.c. in forever so i'm way jealous :)

Anne said...

This looks like such a fun trip and definitely makes me want to go back to DC. The only time I have been was for a conference in January (so it was cold and I had to be at conference seminars for a lot of it). But I did stay at the Omni Shorem when we went and would definitely stay there again, although I will definitely opt to go when the weather is nice!