Despite a lot of heat, humidity and exercising more than anyone should, my wife and I had a great time in Washington D.C. during the 4th of July weekend.
Our first meal in D.C. was at KramerBooks and Afterwords Cafe. I would describe the food as American breakfast with a hint of Mexican flavor. The highlights were my wife’s pancakes, which were super fluffy and delicious and the home fries that had a hint of chili powder, giving them a nice kick compared to other homefries.
After breakfast, we caught an Uber to the National Mall, which is not a mall at all but the area of D.C. that houses a huge portion of the monuments and memorials. We walked to the 4th of July parade route and waited a few hours for the parade to start.
While the parade was fun and entertaining, we had been out in the heat after not getting any more than 4 hours of sleep, so we left before it ended. The parade featured marching bands from schools in the D.C. area and some from other parts of the country including Western Michigan and Houma Louisiana. There were not as many floats and balloons as we expected, but the lack of sleep and desire for water sent us on our way.
After napping the afternoon away, we went to the Hive hotel where we had tickets to watch the fireworks from there rooftop bar. It is here that we discovered “&Pizza”.
&Pizza is like a Subway or Qdoba for Pizza! I must stress that the quality of food is much better than Subway but the idea is the same. The person at the counter picks out a dough and then the rest is up to you. Sauce, cheese, toppings, even a drizzled sauce on top at the end. I got a pizza with spicy sauce, peppers, onions, pepperoni and a sweet chili sauce. It was spicy, light, and fresh. It was so good I could have eaten 3 more pizzas.
After grabbing some “Merica” swag in the form of a red white and blue lei, and some American flag stunner shades, we climbed the stairs to the rooftop bar to wait a few hours for the fireworks to start.
By the time the fireworks started, we realized that the tickets we bought were a steal because right down the main street we were facing we saw the fireworks start directly at eye level and we couldn’t have asked for a better view. Hold on, I take that back, there was a building blocking the leftmost part of the display but the view was still incredible. If you go to D.C. for the 4th I would highly recommend getting tickets for the Hive rooftop bar. Just don’t reserve couches if it’s raining, they covered them after it was already too late.
Breakfast the second day was from a place called Bagels Etc. The homemade bagels were amazing and made even better by the variety of cream cheeses they had. I got Honey walnut and could have taken home their entire stock.
My favorite part of the trip was our time spent at the Journalism museum called the Newseum. The Newseum provided us with an entertaining, thoughtful and most importantly air conditioned look at the history and importance of journalism. We watched videos on women in journalism and reenactments of some of the most important news stories in the country's history. Stories like Edward R. Murrow’s coverage of the air raids on London. We also saw part of the Berlin wall, The first news van, and an entire area dedicated to Jon Stewart and the Daily show.
I want to pause here to say that while D.C. is a lot of fun, it is also a place to reflect on the past. The museums and monuments in the city remind us that freedom isn’t free, and that we are fortunate to live in a free country. With that said…
Parts of the Newseum were difficult to walk through but it was important for us to see these exhibits. There is a section about the Boston Marathon bombing and how the F.B.I. used the media to put out the right information to apprehend the correct suspects.
There is also a large 9/11 exhibit that had a piece of a radio tower media outlets used that was on top of one of the towers. We also saw a video about the journalists that were in the area covering what was going on as it happened and how they dealt with it and kept working through everything so that the American people knew what was going on.
In the first amendment exhibit, we saw a map that showed the extent of freedom of the press in over a hundred countries. It was broken up into three levels. Full freedom of the press, partial freedom, and no freedom. It is astonishing to see how few countries have full freedom, or even partial freedom of the press.
One part of the museum that was pretty important to me, was the dedication to the funny pages,. It wasn’t a very large section, but it was a reminder to me that journalism and comics have always gone hand and hand. As an aspiring comic writer who went to school for journalism, I appreciated the recognition.
After the Newseum we went to The Partisan. This is a restaurant that is part of a butcher shop called The Red Apron. They used locally sourced meat for all their dishes, and you could taste the freshness and quality of the food from the first bite. My wife got a burger that was one of the best I have ever tasted, and I got a pastrami sandwich that was out of this world.
We finished our lunch and set out for the National Archives. Here we were able to see some of the most important documents in American history. This included the Emancipation Proclamation, the Magna Carta, and documents pertaining to the Women’s Suffrage Movement. The line to see the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution was very long so I settled for seeing the iron plate that was used to print the Declaration of Independence.
We had some time after the National Archives so we tackled the first few monuments at the National Mall. We walked to the Washington Monument which is in the middle of the mall and when you look in one direction you can see the White House and to another, you see The World War II Memorial and the reflecting pool that leads up to the Lincoln Memorial.
It might have been the heat but the walk from the World War II Memorial to the Lincoln Memorial along the Reflecting Pool felt like an eternity. When we got to the Lincoln Memorial, there were a lot of people sitting on the stairs. I was surprised that they didn't have roped off sections dedicated to walking in and out because we had to step around people to get in to see Honest Abe.
We also stopped at the Korean War Memorial which had some beautiful statues. Like the 9/11 exhibit at the Newseum, the War memorials can be pretty heavy but it is important to remember the people who lost their lives in the name of freedom.
Dinner that night was at a restaurant in China Town called Reren. We had heard about it in a YouTube video about their five dollar dumplings. The dumplings were delicious and so was the Lamen. The service here was great as well. As soon as we sat down we had glasses of water put in front of us and when the waiter walked by again and saw that the glasses were empty he just brought us a pitcher.
Our last day in D.C. started with a trip to the National Zoo which contained our main objective of the weekend. We wanted to see a panda bear in real life. With less than a handful of zoos in the U.S. that have them, this was our best chance. Seeing an animal you know you may only see once in your life is a surreal experience and we were fortunate to get to see Pandas up close.
We also saw some big cats that were actually awake, Sea Lions, Otters, Elephants, and even some baby armadillos that were kind of adorable. The National Zoo is a great way to spend a few hours while on a trip to D.C. and as an added bonus, it's completely free!
After the Zoo we went to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. The Air and Space Museum is full of replicas of shuttles used by NASA for space exploration and there's a whole exhibit dedicated to the Wright Brother. I learned that they got the idea to try and figure out flight from their experience owning a Bike shop.
My favorite place to eat in D.C. is GCDC. It’s a restaurant we found that specializes in gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches. We found GCDC by accident. I was looking around the area we were heading to and just happened to click on it. I have always wanted to go to a restaurant that specializes in grilled cheese so we stopped by and man was it worth it.
I got the Grilled Cheeseburger and my wife got the Chicken Parm Grilled Cheese. Both sandwiches were excellent. Hers came with marinara dipping sauce and mine with a ketchup mayo mix that complimented the sandwich perfectly. We also got the Poutine Tots which had bacon and cheese on them.
I also found one of my new favorite beers here. I saw a tap that was topped with a pirate skull wearing a hat and asked what it was. The bartender said it was Tropicanon an IPA from Heavy Seas Brewing out of Maryland. From the first sip I was hooked it was a delicious combination of hops and juice and was so refreshing after battling with the heat all day.
With full stomachs, we ventured out for the last leg of our adventure. After struggling to get one the day before, we were finally able to figure out how to rent the powered scooters from Uber. We had seen them all over the city but the day before we could not rent any of the ones we found. We mustered up enough luck to find two that worked.
Hilarity ensued as we set off on our scooters pulling a swift 12 miles an hour we dodged pedestrians and goofed around all the way back to the National Mall. We respectfully got off our scooters to walk along the Vietnam Memorial.
We saw a few people looking for specific names and others taking a moment to take in the sight of the walls lined with the names of all the heroes lost in the conflict.
From the Vietnam Memorial we took off on the long journey to the Jefferson Memorial, which is a bit of a distance from the National Mall. When you get there though, you can see why. The statue of Jefferson is looking directly back out at the Washington Monument and the White House keeping a watchful eye over the capitol.
That was the end of our exploration and our weekend in D.C. It was a beautiful city and besides the heat and humidity, we had a great time. If we are fortunate enough to go back I would like to see the Houlicost Museum, other Smithsonian buildings, such as the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial and the Capitol. I would also like to visit the White House but that requires planning 21 days in advance of your visit.
Some notes on D.C.
For how clean it was there was a lack of trash barrels available but they may have just been for security purposes for the 4th.
Streets can randomly be closed based on moving of the President.
You will see people taking selfies and family photos with the War Memorials we thought this was weird and a little disrespectful.
Hotels charge to park so fly if you can!
USE THE SCOOTERS!
If possible, make reservations for meals.
