Washington, DC

Jan and I just spent a pretty incredible 5 days in Washington, DC. Being a Canadian, (and admittedly, not a real history buff) I really learned a ton on this trip. If you aren't a fan of historical events, museums, monuments and walking a ton... Washington DC may not be the right vacation for you.

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DAY 1:

After flying into the Reagan National Airport and navigating our way to our Airbnb on their metro system, our first stop was The Nationals Park! Scherzer was pitching and the food vendors were plentiful... so we were happy enough to sit in the cold stands and watch the game. From there we walked to Rose's Luxury for dinner, only to find it closed for a private party. So instead, we tried a highly recommended bar called Churchkey which had a great selection of snacks, flatbreads and craft beers. 

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DAY 2:

We made our way to The National Mall area for our first stop: The White House! It was really cool to see in person. There were a million people walking around, and many protesters as well (some which I'm not even sure what they were protesting!) After that, we visited The Archives which holds the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence, all which are extremely faded. From there we walked over the The United States Capitol and had a guided tour of the building and the rotunda full of statues! After all that walking, we needed some sustenance in the form of tapas, sangria and beer, which we found at Jaleo. And final stop of the night was Dacha Beer Garden, an outdoor bar with killer soft pretzels and a huge beer list. 

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DAY 3:

Probably the prettiest spot we saw on our trip was The Arlington National Cemetery, which is the resting place for over 400,000 soldiers, President Taft, President Kennedy & their spouses. The property originally belonged to General E Lee, and his house is available to tour. From Virginia, we walked over the Key Bridge and into back into Washington at Georgetown. We grabbed some pizza at Pizza Paradiso, walked along the perimeter of Georgetown University and through some of the cute cobblestone neighbourhoods. That night we checked out some bars on U Street: Sollys, The Saloon and then Ben's Chili Bowl for some dirty eats.

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DAY 4: 

Lincoln Memorial! I was really excited to see this monument... so iconic! We hit a few more monuments in The National Mall: The Vietnam Memorial, The World War II Memorial and The Washington Monument (from afar). And the we visited some Smithsonians:
The American History Museum to see the exhibits 'The Price of Freedom: Americans at War' (which I thoroughly enjoyed and received a substantial history lesson) and 'The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden.'
The Air & Space Museum which had Apollo 11 and some of the original Wright Brothers Planes!
For dinner we went to a great restaurant called Zaytinya... and it was warm enough to eat on the patio which made my day!

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DAY 5:

Before we flew out at 7p we had a few more attractions to pack into our trip! First and foremost was the house of Fredrick Douglass... which turned out to be my favourite sight of the entire trip. What a impressive man! And the house was preserved by his second wife, so 70 percent of the items in the house were original. Really cool piece of history. Next we stopped at Meridian Hill Park, which was a bit lackluster because none of the flowers had bloomed yet. And our final stop was some Ethiopian eats at Dukem on U Street! 

I sure did walk my feet off in Washington, DC!