This past weekend reunited me with one of my best friends, the wonderful miss Kate. As you saw from the post on Shake Shack burgers, we had an awesome weekend… but I want to show you more!
Kate got to D.C. late Friday night and had to leave early Sunday morning, so we knew we didn’t have a whole lot of time to fit in a reunion that was 4 months in the making! We planned a whole day of tourist activities and then a night of celebrating Kate’s birthday, and it was a BLAST!
To kick off the day, we got up at 6AM for the hour+ commute into the city via the metro. Our goal? The U.S. Capitol, for a tour that none of us had ever been on. FYI, for those of you who want to take advantage of this tour, you can book your tickets online in advance and avoid starting quite so early for walk up tickets like we had to do. Rookie mistake…
Anyway, we got there early enough that we ended up on the first tour of the day. What a COOL experience! The tour starts with a short film about America and it really got us excited to see the rest of the tour. The history that took place in some of the very same places we were standing was just incredible to hear about. It is truly humbling to take this tour. I would recommend it to anyone!
The next stop of the day was the National Gallery of Art. Little known fact about me: I have a minor in art history. For exactly no reason except that I wanted to take the classes! We hurried through the east building and went over to the west building to see one of my favorite paintings… which unfortunately wasn’t out for display. However, I did the get opportunity to tour the impressionist galleries and see my first Monet in person!
Next we went to the National Archives. All I really wanted to do there was hit the gift shop and see if replicas of the Declaration of Independence were still as cheap as they were in National Treasure. However, Kate and Fiance had other ideas – so we headed to see the REAL Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights. This was another cool moment, and i’m glad we went when we did, on a slow Saturday, so we could take time to really explore the documents.
We then crossed the street and went to the Museum of American History. Although we were all EXHAUSTED and hungry at this point, we made sure we got to see the Ruby Red Slippers, Julia Child’s kitchen (too cool), and the robe from the first Harry Potter movie (although we are debating what is American about that. Comments appreciated…)
And what trip to D.C. would be complete without a trip to Georgetown Cupcake? Actually, lots of trips would be complete without that but we were determined. Getting to Georgetown is no small feat. There isn’t a metro there, and its not a short walk from the nearest metro (Rosslyn, by the way) to there. But we made it work. And we were rewarded with cupcakes like Gingerbread, Chocolate Eggnog, and Peanut Butter Fudge. Worth the trip and so delicious!
We ended the day with a trip to Clarendon Grill in Arlington. The band was excellent, the drinks were flowing, and the company was GREAT. All in all, an excellent weekend and i’m so happy that Kate came to visit!
Colorful Commotion 