I ♥ DC!

as much as i hated our hotel, i absolutely loved washington d.c.--i don't know how i missed out on traveling there before now, but i'm ready to go back tomorrow. we're already encouraging gus to consider a semester in d.c., and/or abroad, and/or anywhere else we can travel and see him...

this is what we did:

day 1: arrived, got to fancy-schmancy expensive hotel, ate fancy-schmancy expensive hotel food at such. highlights: getting off the plane, gus going swimming, kids given cute stuffed pandas on arrival.

day 2: WALKED! washington monument, world war II memorial, vietnam war memorial, lincoln memorial (all before lunch, without a stroller!), then to georgetown in afternoon for early dinner at pizzeria paradiso. highlights: experiencing the mall, gus going swimming, getting a charger at best buy, bribing my first hostess to bypass a 30+ minute wait at restaurant.

day 3: national zoo, national museum of natural history, trip to mount vernon. highlights: the metro rides (gus and sophie could have ridden the subway all day and been perfectly happy), seeing pandas safely contained behind glass instead of infesting my boy, gus going swimming, getting the hell out of mount vernon without anyone throwing up or catching a blood-borne illness.

day 4: international spy museum, national gallery east and west wings, back to georgetown for dinner. highlights: the metro (of course), learning that in 1917 germany tried to negotiate returning arizona, new mexico and texas to mexico in return for their support of germany in WWI (!), seeing tony smith's "die," learning about a little dog in the corner of a goya portrait from a super-astute museum guard, gus going swimming, begging rather than bribing for a seat at the head of the line in georgetown.

day 5: national air and space museum, hirshhorn museum, jefferson memorial, roosevelt memorial, phillips collection, back to national air and space museum with rich. highlights: all the cold war displays--sputnik, apollo/soyuz, ICBMs, etc., gus going swimming, going to the phillips collection ALONE and given the chance to feel like an art historian again.

day 6 (today): back to the international spy museum with rich, fly home. highlights: the metro (of course), being with rich, seeing the spy stuff again (that is an exceptional museum), surviving the flight home, seeing paco.

(pictures tomorrow-ish.)