I reached Washington late Friday night around 11.30PM after a 6-hour long bus ride from Raleigh. My college friend Varun, urf Jajjar (coz he comes from Jajjar, Haryana) came to pick me up from the bus station. It was really great to see him after college. We drove off to his apartment which was in Rockville, Maryland, a few miles away from Washington.
We made a pit stop at the IHOP Restaurant at 1.30AM. Had the trademark IHop Danish Fruit Crepes, desserts with some cold coffee.
Saturday(Day 1)
I started the day at 11AM. Which is pretty late from a tourist's point of view. Thanks to the late night chit-chat with Varun. The metro is a fairly convenient and inexpensive mode of transportation in the city. We boarded the metro from the Grosvenor-Strathmore station. Our first stop was the Metro Center station, which is pretty centrally located, surrounded by Chinatown, Farragut North and the Dupont Circle.
We headed straight to The Rashtrapati Bhawan, or should I rather say, The White House at the Pennsylvania Avenue. Few minutes from the White House, is the Washington Monument. Along the way are the Haupt Fountains, which give a beautiful view of the Washington Monument. The monument was splendid and reminded me of the Concorde Monument in Paris. The tickets to the monument are free but very limited, and get exhausted in the morning itself around 8AM.
The Washington Monument was our first stop at the National Mall: the place which is not just a series of formal structures, ceremonial places and democratic vistas but a place where people can freely play, wander, attend some events and have a lot of fun. Next stop was the World War II Memorial. The memorial was beautiful with sculptures, inscriptions, plantings, flowing waters and fountains giving tribute to the 16 million Americans who fought the war.
Walking along the Reflecting Pool which has been inspired by the Taj Mahal, and the Palace of Versailles in France, was the ever so famous Lincoln Memorial which looks like a Greek Temple. The best way to see the monuments, and parks along the mall is to start from one end of the mall, preferably the Lincoln Memorial, which serves as a terminus to the mall. We started from the middle (Washington Monument) so wasted a lot of time going to and fro. There were international tourists all over the place, so it was tough to get our picture with Mr. Lincoln.
The US Capitol Hill, is at the other end of the Mall, for which we had to walk all the way back, crossing the same memorials again and also the set of Smithsonian Museums. At the base of the Capitol Hill lies the Ulysees Grant Memorial and Capitol Reflecting Pool.
After all the walking, Jajjar and me were famished, and needed some place to eat and cool off. The weather, which was sweltering hot didn't help the cause. We were not able to find any restaurants close by in the map, only refreshment stands outside the museums. Then we came to know about a restaurant inside the National Museum of Natural History. The entry was free to this museum, and to the others we went to.
It was around 4.30PM when we finished eating. No prize for guessing but our first stop inside the museum was the "Dinosaur" hall. It was truly fascinating to see the all those fossils and bones of dinosaurs which were around 100 million years old. Next we visited the hall of modern mammals, where they had stuffed the skins to give it a real zoo like feeling. The best shot for me was to see the leopard on the tree top, with its prey, a deer, hanging on the branches.
We quickly brushed through the hall of sea creatures, which didn’t fascinate me much after seeing the real ones at the Aquarium in Chicago.
As it was summer time and the tourist season in the city, so most of the museums were closing at 7PM. We didn’t want to leave the Mall without visiting the National Air and Space Museum, which was our next stop. There were models of many old airplanes and those of the NASA space shuttles. Although the models of the space shuttles, the Apollo's and satellites should not be missed, but the one that fascinated me was Amelia Earhart's Red Lockheed Vega. This plane, although so old, looked stunning in red. She flew this airplane twice in 1932, the first solo flight by a woman across the Atlantic and across the US.
It was night time and party time. Dupont Circle and Georgetown are two of the city's hottest hoods for nightlife. To begin with we needed a few pints of beers to cool us off. A friend of Varun had recommended us a sports bar, called, "Lucky Bar" at the Dupont Circle. Instead of my usual Sam Adams or Guinness, I drank the Yuengling beer (they pronounce it as Ying-Ling), which tasted simply great. It has more hops and barley, than many other beers in the US. They were playing some great music, and the place was just warming up at that time.
Another friend of mine, Mehak, came to pick us up from the Lucky Bar. I was meeting her after college and it was really good to see her after all this while. She was with a friend, Raghav, and then we drove off to Chinatown which is much more than just a handful of red-sauce restaurants.
It was the time for some fine-dining at Zaytinya, a Greek/Mediterranean tapas restaurant in Chinatown offering authentic mezze cuisine. I had Bantijan Bil Laban, Spring Bean Plaki, Falafel with Sangria and Jim Bean. Turkish Coffee Chocolate was its very best.
After the dinner we headed off to Georgetown to indulge in some clubbing. Georgetown is a trendy nightlife options galore. The place was full of clubs, lounges and bustling crowds. We were having a lot of fun just chit chatting, so instead of hanging out in a club we went to a Turkish lounge.
It was 3 AM, when we finally decided to call it a day (or night :P). By the time we reached Varun's apartment it was 4 in the morning.
Sunday (Day 2)
Technically speaking my day 2 had already begun last night at Georgetown. Sleeping at 4.30 in the morning we guys deserve more than a pat on the back to be up and ready by 11. I was leaving Washington at 4PM, so I did not have a lot of time to spend on Sunday.
I had read about a place called, Baked and Wired, on another blog. It is a very popular place in Georgetown to have cup cakes. I was happy that the place matched my expectations. The cup cakes were absolutely delicious. We had series of them. Chocolate Raspberry, Lemon Pound Cake, Carrot Cake, Chocolate Blueberry, Dark Turkish cake and more, with Café Latte and Mocha.
A very famous pizza place in Dupont Circle is Pizzeria Paradiso. Which was my next and final
stop before heading to the bus station. I had read a lot about this place, and it is said that this was the first place to bring wood-fired pizzas to the city. With our tummies full, it was time to head back to Raleigh.
The Greyhound bus station was very near to the Union Station. We took the metro from the Dupont Circle to the Union Station.
My bus was at 4.45PM, but thanks to over booking, delays and break downs I left Washington at 7 PM. And I reached Raleigh pretty late. Bus-stations at night are definitely not the best place to be. And with this kind of experience, I don’t recommend inter-state bus journeys at all.
However, this trip was too good. Thanks to the Yahoo Trip-Planner and a post by Lenuca n Tinik, I knew Washington in 2 days was possible. Having friends along makes the trip a lot more fun. So it was great to have Jajjar, along with Mehak and Raghav. There were still other places in the city, that I didn’t visit. But I think one should not cover everything in the first trip. So you always have a reason and eagerness to visit again.
Until next time, yala bye Washington...
