That's capital!

The beginning of this week found the manfriend and myself tooling around our nation's capital. He had some free time and my schedule is decidedly open right now aaaand he has some friends living there, working for The Administration, so we decided to go on a mini-break.

We flew in Sunday night and arrived at his friends' totally adorable row house in the Howard University area of the city (apologies to anyone super familiar with DC for my ignorance of the neighborhoods). Since it was a work night for Liz and Dan and we were on Chicago time, we decided to go find a bar for a drink. But wound up walking from their house down to the Mall to see the Washington Monument. It was crazy foggy, so we couldn't see too much of it, but it was really cool to walk around an almost deserted city.

Monday morning we went to another friend's (super sweet) apartment for a homemade breakfast. Bagels and eggs and the best bacon I've ever had in my life. Michael is a friend from high school who worked for Obama's campaign, but didn't want to work in the administration, so he started his own political consulting business about two years ago. Who does he consult, you ask? Oh, just the Mongolian government. Like ya do... And after our breakfast he was jetting off to Rome to advise a communist billionaire running for mayor of Rome. 

So after breakfast (seriously, guys, best bacon ever), we wandered past the White House and then walked over to the Smithsonian Museum of American History. First of all, I LOVE that all of these museums are free. I think museums should be because education and knowledge and information should be free and accessible to all. Like the interwebs.

• Pros: they have THE Star Spangled Banner. Like, the real one that flew over that fort when the British were trying to burn down the capital city during the war of 1812 and inspired the song that eventually became our national anthem. I'm not the most patriotic person ever, but it was really, really cool to see something of such historical importance. Also, they had a collection of dressed belonging to First Ladies through the years. I, obviously, loved this exhibit. Gorgeous dresses.
• Cons: storytelling is clearly not the strongest skill of the folks putting these exhibits together. History is a story and you need the full story for an object to make sense and be important. I know people don't want to read several paragraphs about a tie pin or something, but when you have a whole area devoted to a sunken ship, you might want to have more than "here's a boat." Also, they did have the lunch counter from the sit ins during the Civil Rights Movement, but it was just stuck against a wall with a plaque. Give me more! Tell me a story! This lunch counter is important! (And yes, I know this might be a consequence of the museum being free, but still. Hmph.)

Lunch happened. Tasty, tasty reuben. And then we found our way to the Natural History Museum. We didn't run into the same complaints this time, because when you have a stuffed zebra on display, you don't need to know about its mom and dad. We saw the Hope Diamond. The manfriend has seen it before and was still disappointed because it was so "small." I told him I was rethinking my Christmas list.

Eventually, we met up with Liz and Dan for dinner and a dog walk. They have an adorable rescue dog  that they think is a German Shepherd-Chow mix. We took her over to a dog park and she was sooooo happy. The manfriend became besties with a golden doodle who kept giving him a "good lean."

So. That was Monday.

We had a swanky hotel near the Capitol building, so Tuesday morning we decided to head over there for a tour. The manfriend didn't miss a single opportunity to gesture to the Capitol and say, "That's capital!" Not. a single. one.

That's capital!

The rotunda is gorgeous, the history of the building is awe inspiring (we stood in the spot where Lincoln's desk was when he was in the House), but the tour guide left something to be desired. She would finish up in each room with "So, what else should I tell you?" Um, I don't know - you're the one giving the tour. She was obviously very well informed and knew the answers to all the questions. Except that one.

We were meeting Liz for a tour of her office building around lunch time. The tour took us right up to that time, so we hopped in a cab and the manfriend said, "To the White House!" Which I thought was hilarious because I'm pretty sure he's been waiting for an opportunity to do that. Now. Liz works in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the White House. She did try to get us on a White House tour, but they were all full. So we had to settle for a tour of the EEOB. Darn.

We had to be cleared through security and go through metal detectors and the whole bit. We saw Liz's office and met her office-mate, the Director of Counter Nuclear Terrorism. We walked past Dr. Jill Biden's office and Biden's office. We're pretty sure he was in there, due to the body guards outside the door. And then she showed us the entrance to the West Wing across the parking lot from the EEOB. She was going to try to get us into the "Sit Room," but since there were meetings happening in there and we couldn't interrupt Important Government Business (lame), we didn't get to go in there. But we were so close! That "nickel tour" was probably one of the coolest parts of the trip.

We had a couple hours before we left, so we went to the National Portrait Gallery. Not a whole lot to say, other than it was interesting and cool, but I was so tired at this point, it was kind of a blur. But I did get really excited when we found a painting of Isaac Singer and his patent model from 1854 (I think) for his update to the sewing machine he patented in 1851. I nerded out.

Fancy.

I love that they look pretty much the same.

After the Portrait Gallery, we had worked up quite a thirst, so we went to a bar near the hotel. There happened to be a holiday party going on and I wound up getting some drink tickets, so yay free beer! And then it was just a train, a bus, a plane, another two train rides, and a ten minute walk and we were home!

One thing about the Metro: It's. So. Clean. Like... OMG. The seats are squishy and the train cars are CARPETED. As anyone who has ever been on the CTA red line late at night knows... carpet is a bold choice on public transit. 

We had a wonderful time and are already making a list of things we want to do when we go back.

Guys, our capital is a really pretty city:

That's capital!