Day 4 of DC

We didn’t make it to the bus.  We missed it by 10 minutes.  No worries because the Ritz provides shuttles!  We’re just too cheap to use them all the time.  Haha They took us to the shuttle and we were off to the Eastern Market.  We got there a bit early, so things weren’t completely set up yet.  We bought 3 different teas.  2 herbal and 1 green tea.  We took breakfast to go at Marvelous Market.  They had this really good flourless blueberry muffin.  Hmm…so moist and light!  The muffin top was really good too.  Mm…I want more.  Tasted great with the coffee.  The everything bagel had a lot of flavor as well.  I’d definitely go back to this place.

W e went to the Capitol next.  We scheduled a tour with the congressman, so we bypassed the line.  They said that those who didn’t reserve were still able to go in, but they would have to wait until the next available tour.  I’m glad we reserved in advance.  The lines were ridiculous.  Our tour guide was friendly and informative.  She liked all the kids up front.  =)  We were short, so we put ourselves in front.

The Library of Congress is just across the way, so we went ahead and visited that next.  A tour was available at 130, but we couldn’t wait that long.  I wanted a tour of this place because I didn’t know where to start.  It’s huge!  So many staircases leading into the unknown.  I don’t think I was prepared for that.  I know part of the adventure is exploration, but I like a little extra information here and there.  We did find the Jefferson Library all by ourselves.  Massive amounts of books!  We didn’t go into the reading room.  I completely forgot about it, until we were already on our way out.

On our quest for the American History Museum, we first stopped by several places for some food options.  We tried the Native American Indian Museum, but the wait was one and a half hours!  YIKES!  The menu looked good, but we had other places to be.  We figured we check out the inside of the space museum.  This place will be our visit tomorrow.  Looks enormous already.  I don’t know how to tackle this thing!  I’m going to let a tour guide take us.  =)  Then we’ll just go to things we want to see afterwards.  We ate at the McDonald’s at their food court.  (our first fast food) stop.  Pretty good huh?  It was expensive though!  They definitely overcharged.  $7 for a big mac meal, are you kidding me?

Afterwards, went to check out the Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden.  Then we cruised past the Smithsonian castle.  Went inside to see the quick film, and rest a bit.  Then our final destination was the American History Museum.  By now, it’s been about 3 and a half days of walking, my feet are killing me!  Only today I mean.  The other days were fine.  Today, they just gave up on me.  Anyways we’re troopers, so we went and saw a pretty good portion of the museum.  We stayed here for a good 3 hours.  The First Lady exhibit was neat with all their dresses.  I wonder if they’ll put up Michelle Obama’s dress up later too.  Hers was really pretty.  

Dinner was Qdoba.  It’s takeout similar to Chipotle.  It was missing the extra sauce bar.  Still satisfying though.  Everywhere else was packed with people.  OMG!  I forgot to mention how crowded it was today!  Everyone was either in their car or on the streets today.  Next time, I go to DC it will be an off season.

The last event of the evening was the Lantern Cherry Blossom walk given by nps.gov.  It started at 8-10pm.  We made it just in time.  The cherry blossoms were really beautiful at night.  The night was perfect.  What made it the most perfect was, Doug proposed!! He was veerrryyy smooth.  =D   Say hello to soon to be Mrs. Yukihiro.  =)