Washington DC - Part 1

Ever since Scott and I started dating, he always wanted to take me to Washington DC. I have never been and with him being such a history buff, we needed to go. In no way could he marry a woman who has never been to DC!! We booked our flights... well, our friends, Nico & Ines from Argentina has a list of places they want to go while they are living in the US. On their list was Washington DC therefore we planned a couple’s getaway...

We arrived on Wednesday night and as soon as we arrived at the hotel, we headed out. I thought it would be a light stroll around the area just to catch a glimpse of the sites. It ended up being a 3 hour walk and we didn't get back to the hotel until 1:30AM. We hit all the major sites: Washington Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, White House... too bad we forgot our cameras.

The next morning, we slept in for a little bit considering the adventure the night before. Finally, we headed out of the hotel at 11AM to catch lunch. Afterwards, we took the subway to Arlington Cemetery. It was amazing to see all the tombstones of the military heroes. I believe there were almost 300,000 people buried in Arlington. From there we walked to the Iwo Jima Memorial. This has always been one of my favorite US memorials. I don't know why, but to me it seems very moving to see. I had no idea how large it actually was until you are right up next to it.


After the 4 1/2 hour walk through Arlington, we headed back to the city. Once back, we went to the National Archives. This is where the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights are kept. The room was kept very dim so that the documents are not damaged by the lights. It was amazing to think that those are the exact same pieces of paper that John Hancock put his John Hancock... With such a packed day, we took it easy in the evening and headed out to a seafood buffet. Unfortunately, it wasn't as great as it sounded at the time. After dinner, we headed back to the hotel and crashed.

On Friday morning, the forecast was 95 degrees with a Heat Index of 102 degrees. With that said, we all decided that it would be best to stay indoors rather than walking outside all day. So we did the museums. First, we started out at the Smithsonian Institute Museum of Natural History. We saw stuffed animals from various parts of the world. We then went to the IMax where we saw a 3D documentary on sharks and ocean critters. Next, we went on to the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum. Here we saw various air and space crafts throughout time. Since the Smithsonian Institute Museum of American History was closed for renovation, there was a small exhibit in the Air & Space Museum with some of the highlights. This is where I saw my favorite Muppet, Kermit.

Lastly, we went to the Holocaust Museum. We made it just in time to catch the last elevator up before the exhibit closed for the day. This gave us an hour to look through. The exhibit had so much information and was so remarkable that we only went through the first piece of it in the hour that we had allotted. With that, we all promised each other that we would come back at another time. Friday evening, we packed up and went back to the airport to pick up our rental car. We were switching hotels.

We moved to a hotel in Maryland about 30 minutes from Washington DC. We had big plans for the next day…

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