Washington DC Day 1 (continued)

So here I am 2 weeks later after returning home, picking up the second half of day 1 in DC, and this time using my macbook instead of the iPhone. So I return my mind to the context of that fun DC tourist trip, here we are at the west end of the DC National Mall, having visited the amazingly powerful Vietnam War Memorial aka The Wall, and we strolled south to the Korean War Memorial. Almost spooky, statues of soldiers in various positions that all seem to be looking at you wherever you are. Check this out:






Behind the statues in this photo is a black stone wall that is very shiny and reflective, but has paintings of people in it that look like reflections, again very spooky, here is a picture where you can see some of those folks in the wall and also my reflection taking the picture (dufus in brown shorts), and Georgia's reflection also.






So after a long stroll to the other end of the Mall where we had an unexciting lunch in the food court of the Natural History Museum, we decided that it being incredibly hot and being full of food and dopey, we should go watch an IMAX movie or two in the Air and Space museum. Nice movies about space and early flight, but really, cool and comfortable seats, great time for a nap. Seemed like time to start working our way back by way of the White House, so off we went on foot. Walking up 14th street along the west side of the American History Museum I noticed this obviously old gazebo on the grounds in front of the museum, snapped a photo and made a note to find out what this is, comments welcome.



Interesting, huh? Let me know if you google the answer before I do, else will come back and edit the page, which will be another first for me with the tool. Anyway, looking at the parked cars I noticed the DC license plates, hadn't spotted the text included under the number:



OK, so on we went up the street past the South Lawn of the White House, which is heavily guarded and you can't get close enough to see anything, up to Pennsylvania Ave on the north side, blocked off to vehicle traffic but friendly to pedestrians, separating the White House from Lafayette Park. Here is a snapshot from there, notice on the roof to the right of the raised center area, there is what looks like a dark antenna or thin statue. It is an armed guard, they are all over the roof.



We strolled through Lafayette Park, stopped and rested our feet for a while, and snapped a photo of the statue of Andrew Jackson on horseback there, before finding the metro and heading back to our hotel in Foggy Bottom.



Before leaving the park we called the Sea Catch restaurant in Georgetown for reservations, on recommendations from our hotel. Nice romantic restaurant, great patio overlooking a canal, a little pricey but good food and service. Here is Georgia happy to be contemplating something very different from a food court:



Here is the view past Georgia's right hand (can't wear glasses for a photo), we are really on more of a long porch rather than a patio, very nice.



Instead of going straight back to the hotel after this nice end to a long first day, I insisted we take the metro up to Dupont Circle, because I read that there is an all-night bookstore that serves food and booze and has live entertainment. How good does it get? Had to go have desert and browse the books. Here is a lousy photo inside Kramerbooks:



Turns out the music wasn't bad, a keyboard player with a large repertoire including some nice blues. OK, finally time to head home. Holy smokes, this is taken about halfway down the escalator from the street down to the metro, some of these are amazingly long, especially after a few drinks:

Washington DC. Day 1

Now for some standard siteseeing:



Good first stop Friday morning. First real travel photo with iPhone 3GS, cropped with Cropforfree iPhone app but otherwise unretouched. Have acquired some apps for photo enhancement but have not gone there just yet.

Here's the obligatory view from below Abe's feet looking back to the Washington monument and the Capitol beyond, faintly in left. Unretouched iPhone snap.




Then we walked to the Vietnam Memorial nearby, here is a memorial sculpture near The Wall:



Now for the Wall. We were totally unprepared for the scale and the power of this monument. Highest point inthe center marks the beginning and end of the casualty list in time order, proceding down to the right (east) tapering down to a point, then resuming at a point way to the left meeting Bach center. Here is a shot looking east from the center, Washington monument in the distance:



I edited the above iphone photo with an iphone app Photogene to adjust exposure and contrast, original is very dark. Now tapering down to the east...



And coming to a point down at your feet:



Here is another nice Vietnam memorial sculpure nearby, a female medic tending to a wounded soldier:



I will continue with day one on next post, want to see how this looks on a real webpage with the photos.

--Post From My iPhone

Washington DC Day 0 - planning 101

So here we are at the River Inn before dark, and I decide to build upon my logistical triumphs. Let's walk up to Trader Joe's, I say, only 3 blocks away, bring back food and booze stash for the hotel room mini-kitchen, and THEN go out to dinner. Brilliant. As we head off, it starts pouring down great buckets, but it would be silly to go back for the umbrellas. So there is a nice Thai restaurant next to TJ's, but of course we are soaked to the skin and have this soggy French bread, so back to the hotel. After changing clothes we head out into the clear evening armed with our umbrellas, and make it to the Thai Coast before closing. Fortunately the food was terrific. I had a green curry with chicken, and Georgia had a seafood something or other. I had a Sake-tini, chilled sake with an olive, tasted great, as any alcohol would have at that point.

End of Day 0 in DC.


-- Post From My iPhone

Washington DC day 0

Arrived Thursday 23Jul Dulles 5pm. Georgia was waiting for me, having been here since Monday attending a class near Tyson's Corner. She drove her rental car back to the airport, turned it in, and we happily got on the Washington Flyer headed for the metro, at, you guessed it, a mile or so from her hotel. Circular motion required to dump the Yaris and join up for a car-free long weekend in the city.

Zipped into the city on the Orange line, hopped off at Foggy Bottom and we rolled our bags to the hotel in a jiffy, very slick.



-- Post From My iPhone