A Day in DC

Arlington Cemetery 

First official day in Washington DC!  Since driving in DC would be a nightmare, we opted to take the metro system.  We parked at the Kings Street Station and just made our way from there.  Interestingly enough this Metro system was much different from the ones that we have previously experienced in Europe.  It was less crowded, the ticketing system was a little odd, and the metro wasn't as far underground as those in England and France.  Our first stop of the day was Arlington Cemetery.  Ty had been wanting to see this site, but unfortunately it wasn't all that amazing.  Just a lot of graves.  Its a very important place, but just not much to see.  In addition it was like a million degrees and we were sweating buckets and were extremely grouchy.  

After Arlington, we walked across the Potomac River and into DC.  The first thing that we saw was the Lincoln Memorial.  It was pretty magnificent, and it overlooked the Washington Monument, or as I like to cal it, the big obelisk.  We also got to see the WWII memorial.  Next stop was the National Museum of American History.  It was cool to get to see some of the clothes and props that famous people once wore.  In addition we got to see a food exhibit (how fitting).  The museum also hosted the Star Spangled Banner.  We couldn't take any photos, but it was HUGE and very magnificent, even though it was torn and tattered,

 After the American History Museum we visited the Natural history museum, which was one of my favorites just because of all the animals and biology (:  Then we walked a little further and went to the National Archives.  Last time in DC I didn't have the time to go here, but I was very happy that we made it this trip.  The museum housed the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  The Declaration of independence was really faded, but it was so cool to see all of the signatures!  We also were lucky to see an exhibit which held autographs from famous people around the world.  Ty and I were most interested in the signature by Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun on a wedding certificate of marriage...kind of creepy!

Fits my Vegan personality 

After our long and tiring trip around the museums we decided to head for dinner at Union Station.  I had come to Union Station for pizza with my orchestra 1.5 years ago, and I remembered that there were some pretty good restaurants there.  We hopped on the metro and arrived in Union Station, starving.  The first place that truly fought our attention was a restaurant called Roti (mediterranean cuisine).  I had hummus, falafel, some rice, tomatoes and cucumbers and pita bread, whereas Ty got chicken, rice, hummus, vegetables and the pita bread.  This food was fantastic and definitely filled a hole.  A plus was that the bread had just come out of the oven, so it was nice and warm!