DAY 2 - D.C.

Day 2 was just as exciting as day 1. We slept in until about 9am which felt really good. I took the day off. When we got up and Katie got ready, I researched some design stores that Katie showed me once upon a time in a blog. It mentioned several places to go, and it told us which stores to check out for the fashion savvy people. So I decided to take Katie to an area called Adams Morgan. Before we did, we stopped to get some Crepes from a restaurant just downstairs from my apartment. It was great. Then we walked through Pentagon City Mall to get to the Metro station (see Metro map from Day 1). We hopped the Yellow Line from Pentagon City to Gallery Place/Chinatown. From there we headed west on the Red Line to Adams Morgan. At Adams Morgan, we walked everywhere. The sun was shining and it was hot. From the station, we walked across a huge, tall bridge, walked down some streets, and eventually came to the “busy” part of town. We checked out several shops, and walked up and down some hilly streets. After checking out some stores like And Beige and Meeps, we got some coffee. One guy (from And Beige) told us to walk to P Street and 14th. It was quite the hike to get there. Along the way we saw another store called Miss Pixie's and stopped in. From there we kept walking to Dupont Circle (next stop on the Red Line). We rested a bit at the fountain in Dupont. We were exhausted.

By this point, we walked roughly 13 miles in two days with much more walking ahead of us. From there we hopped back on the Red Line towards Chinatown, switched over to the Yellow Line to the Archives/Penn Quarter stop, and we exited there. We walked to the National Archives which many will remember from the movie “National Treasure.” We explored a bunch of history here including the original Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution. We also saw Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, signed and everything. It was cool, but our feet were on fire.

We then walked south towards L’Enfant Plaza and then headed east up the street towards the Library of Congress. We had a blast here. We wanted to go in, but unfortunately they closed a lot earlier than expected. So we just rested by the steps and took several pics. After that, we were close to the Blue Line station (Capitol South), so we hopped that and headed back towards Chinatown.

At Chinatown, we ate at one of my favorite Chinese restaurants that I’ve gone to many times, Tony Cheng’s. Katie’s initial reaction was not as impressed as I first was, but that all changed when we ordered our drink. We got the Flaming Volcano which was a monstrous drink made for 4 people. The food was extraordinary as well. From here we hopped on the Yellow Line from Chinatown down to King St. This dumped us out to Old Town Alexandria where I lived the last time I was here. We walked a lot here, too. We walked all the way from the King Street station to the Eisenhower station. I showed Katie where I used to live, and we stopped at this nice restaurant and sat at the bar for a few drinks. The bartenders were friendly and one of them (who looked a lot like Tyrone Wells) was busting out corny joke after corny joke (Example 1: What do you call a guy with no arms, no legs, and is mounted on a wall? Answer: Art. Example 2: What do you call a Fish missing an “eye?” Answer: Fsh. That one got me cracking up!) From there we crossed the street to the giant movie theater and proceeded to watch “Love Happens” with Aaron Eckhart and Jennifer Aniston. Katie cried. I cried, too...but only because I was annoyed by the movie because it had no real point. Finally the day was over. We hopped on the Yellow Line from Eisenhower to Pentagon City and back home. Despite being dead tired, we packed our bags for our trip to New York. It was passed 1am when we went to sleep. All-in-all, we walked about 20 miles in two days.

To view all pictures from the trip with captions, visit http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=2107628009/a=70595232_70595232/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/