Doing DC!

Spring break this year took us to Washington DC. I rented a cute little apartment in Capitol Hill (I recommend this place if you plan on visiting...though not "cheap", it IS cheaper than any in-town hotel). It was nice to be in a neighborhood and within a 15 minute walk of Union Station.
One thing on our "to-do" list was to visit a couple of colleges that Gabi was interested in. Tenth grade is a bit early to start thinking about college, but I figured that since we were in town, it wouldn't hurt to check a few out. Gabi is very interested in politics/current events and what better town to be in for that! So on Tuesday we toured George Washington University in Foggy Bottom:
which definitely had a hustle-bustle city feel to it and then and on Wednesday we made the trek to Georgetown to tour that campus:
which is just blocks from Foggy Bottom but definitely has a calmer, village-like feel to it. Then on our drive back on Friday, we stopped to visit University of Virginia:
that doesn't have Gabi's "required" city location, but WOW, what a campus! After listening to the cool programs available at all three places, Ken and I are both eager to go back to school!

Naturally, museum visits were high on list for our visit. Tuesday afternoon we visited the American History museum to see some of the cultural icons displayed there, then followed that with a trip to the Hirshhorn Gallery and a whimsical contemporary art exhibit that included a room with beds for you to lie down on (art?) and a room with long, blue plastic strands, like whip licorice, to walk through.
We visited the Phillips Collection on Thursday, mostly to see the "Rothko Room"
I am a a self-admitted news junkie, so we had some visits planned to make me happy! We toured the NPR headquarters which was a great behind-the scenes tour. The tour guide was terrific and very laid-back - he took us all over the building, including into the offices where many of the shows are written - saw Steve Innskeep, morning edition host working on some stories. Visited the sound studio where some of the live music interviews are recorded:
I recommend this tour for anyone interested in radio/news production! It was great!

We also spent four hours (over two days) at the Newseum, my dream museum devoted to news and journalism. One very interesting exhibit was about the Berlin Wall - Ken and I had traveled to Berlin a couple of months after the fall of the wall - check out these two pictures, one from 1990 and one from 2012!
Same sign, just different locations! There were also very good exhibits on 9/11, presidential campaigns of the past and a whole room full of famous newspaper headlines. And of course at the end, they let visitors try their hand at news anchoring - here is our future Diane Sawyer!
No trip to DC would be complete without a night tour of the monuments - so we fit that in one night, visiting Lincoln, MLK and Roosevelt as well as the Korean and Vietnam war memorials. Ken observed that the monuments almost look better at night than during the day.
Of course a big part of any vacation is eating good food and DC has no shortage of dining choices - too bad we only had three evening meals. The highlight meal was probably a trip to Belga Cafe, a short walk from the apartment, where we ate delicious "moules-frites"
and Ken and Gabi shared what they described as the "best dessert we have ever eaten" - Belgian chocolate cake. Wednesday evening we ate at "DC Noodles" on U street, an area of DC recently redeveloped. Delicious, spicy noodles for Ken and Gabi and a more mild noodle salad for me.
Then on Thursday night we ate at the DC branch of a favorite restaurant in Firenze, Acqua al Due, also a short walk from our apartment. They are known for their 5-pasta sampler, which we had, as well as their 4-dessert sampler that we ended the meal with. Yummy!

For lunches we enjoyed our London go-to spot twice: "Pret a Manger", a great place with freshly made sandwiches with interesting ingredients.
On our day in Georgetown we ate lunch at the very posh Kafe Leopold where I felt surrounded by that "1%" we hear so much about these days. Gabi had kasespaetzle, I had croque monsieur and Ken had lentil soup and a wild mushroom tarte.
We were sad that we were too full after lunch to enjoy a treat from their expansive kuchen selection:
All in all, a great trip to a great city! It's a place I definitely wouldn't mind moving to one day!