We all woke up pretty late since we stayed up late yesterday, but we were up and moving by about 10. Austin ordered us all coffee and croissants from a local bakery which we enjoyed during our slow morning. Jackson and I got out of the house around noon, with Austin staying home for the day since he had stuff to do and wasn’t too keen on walking all day to see stuff he’s seen a lot of times before.
We took the metro to Metro Center station and started walking. We had a list of a few things we wanted to see but were also planning to go to anything interesting we saw. We also decided not to use Google Maps and try and navigate around using only signs and what we could see. We started off at the treasury building which looks kind of similar to the White House - if you’ve never seen the White House before.
We then continued on to the actual White House which had a lot of people around it (of course). There was a surprising lack of police around, but I don’t doubt there’s a lot more security than what we can actually see. We got lucky with a spot right in the middle of the fence to take a photo through, and a nice woman offered to take our photo, and in return we also took her photo.
Walking away from the White House brought us to some nice statues and parks, and eventually looped around to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building: a huge 6 or so story building with incredible detail in the stone work everywhere you look. We couldn’t get close or go inside it - as is the case with many of the buildings here - but it was a nice sight on the way to the rest of the stuff we wanted to see.
Next up is kind of a rapid fire list of places we saw, along with a quick comment since we really didn’t stick around much at each of them. The Washington Monument was very tall, and had a ton of American flags all around it which makes sense. The World War 2 memorial was quite interesting and has a pillar for every state along with some dedications to many of the major battles in the war, many of which I haven’t heard of.
The Reflection Pool - the very long, shallow pool on the way to the Lincoln memorial - was quite nice, though along the edges you could definitely see the dirt and grime along with some trash building up. It could probably do with a more regular cleaning but it was still a very nice view. The pool lead us all the way to the Lincoln Memorial, a large building with a huge statue of Abraham Lincoln in it, along with the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural Address in huge engraved text along the wall.
From there we walked to the Korean War memorial through to the MLK memorial on the lake. We walked along the lake with plans to go see the Thomas Jefferson memorial but decided it was probably a bit too far and that we were happy with just seeing it across the lake.
We then walked quite a ways to the capitol building, passing by the Smithsonian and the Natural History Museum along the way. Both interesting places, but not something we had time to visit today. We walked down the capital mall to the US Capitol Building where we decided to stop and grab a drink at a food truck by the side of the road. I ended up paying an exorbitant $6 for a root beer while Jackson paid a staggering $14 for a “boba tea” which ended up being absolutely awful with him being unable to even finish drinking it.
We took an instant camera photo in front of the capitol, but couldn’t get close on this side due to a concert happening later tonight. We then walked all the way around towards the front as Jackson looked for a bin to throw out the remainder of his drink, something that is shockingly rare around the capitol. We eventually found one right near the front of the building that was starting to overflow, so clearly we’re not the only ones who struggled to find a bin.
We then got our photos in front of the capitol (the real front this time, the other side was the back) now that we were able to get right up close to it. We took a seat for a bit while we figured out what we wanted to do next, as we’d mostly run out of all the common stuff we wanted to see. We called Austin up and asked if he had any suggestions, and he suggested “The Hamilton” downtown, a nice bar that apparently also does sushi.
We walked a few minutes to a metro station where we took it back downtown and then had another short walk to the bar. It definitely looks and feels like an upmarket place, being situated in an old looking building with very tall ceilings. We took a seat at the bar and started watching the hockey game before Jackson ordered a beer and I ordered a milkshake. The bartender had to figure out how to place an order for a milkshake as she doesn’t usually get orders for milkshakes at the bar, but she found it fun. We also ordered a plate of sushi to share, which was quite reasonably priced due to it being happy hour. Our bills ended up being exactly the same even though we ordered different things, so that was neat.
After the bar we went back to Austin’s place for a bit before Jackson and I headed to a barbecue with some of his other friends on the other side of the city. For timing reasons we ended up taking an Uber, since taking the metro and walking would have been almost twice as long, and we still wanted to come home and watch a movie with Austin after the barbecue, so we couldn’t be out too late.
We had a really fun time at the barbecue and it was a great chance for Jackson to meet up with some friends he hasn’t seen in a while. We all shared our most interesting travel stories around the table as we ate (and there were some wild ones), and then Jackson and I said our goodbyes and got an Uber back to Austin’s.
Once we got home we all watched a movie called “The Disaster Artist”, a movie about the creation of another movie “The Room”, a cult classic that you’ve likely seen at least one clip from (“oh hi Mark” ring a bell?). It ended up being a fantastic movie, and definitely one I’d recommend to people and would watch again. Once we finished the movie we hung out for a bit longer before calling it a night and heading to bed.