Washington D.C. November 8-12

We arrived early at the State Plaza Hotel, but the room was ready - and it was not even noon. We parked under the hotel and went up to our little suite. It has a king bed and a separate little kitchen complete with fridge, stovetop, microwave and toaster as well as cutlery etc.

 We walked to Shawarma District Lebanese restaurant on 18th St. for a late lunch as well as to a coffee shop across the street. 

 On our first full day we walked over 4.5 miles, deciding to leave the car behind. The weather was gorgeous - full sun and in the 70s. We walked first to the Museum of African American History in hopes of finding out about same-day tickets which we were unable to get online. Well - that's because it was closed today! 

 From there, we walked to the National Gallery of Art. We used their phone app and only visited a small part of the West Wing. The app gave a lot of in depth information about certain paintings. 

 After that, we walked to Jaleo, Jose Andres' restaurant on 7th St. Mark had a compris menu of tapas - gazpacho, chicken croquettes, cauliflower with dates and olives and flan. Barbara had a bowl of gazpacho and the beet salad (with a Spanish blue cheese, citrus, greens and pistachios) We had gone there several years ago with Liz S. and were happy to revisit it. Then we walked back the the Mall and got on the Circulator Bus which took us down the Mall, around the Tidal Basin and past the Lincoln Memorial. We got out at the WWII Memorial and then walked back to our hotel. 

 Today, our second full day here, Liz got us tickets for the National African American Museum! We have tried numerous times and never got tickets. Yay! So, we walked there on another gorgeous day for 10:30 admission.(Another day of 4.5 miles of walking) 

 First, the building alone is stupendous. We started with the speical exhibit on Reconstruction. It was excellent, depressing and sobering. After that, we toured the lower 3 levels are arranged chronologically and are incredible. The information is well displayed. After that, we were both tired, so we did not properly see the 3 other floors, but did zip through some of them. We both especially enjoyed the 4th floor with its focus on music. We are meeting Lizzy tomorrow at noon to revisit the museum if she can manage to get tickets again. 

We were too tired to go out for dinner, so ate at the hotel's Garden Cafe and it was actually quite good and also reasonable. 

 We had a VERY special third full day in Washington, D.C. And, it was another gorgeous day. First, we walked to a cafe on the G.W. campus for breakfast. We met Liz Skokan at noon at the National Museum of African-American History as she was able to get tickets, despite it being Veterans' Day. We focused on the 3rd and 4th floors- music, art, performance, education, sports. 

We sat on the Mall and chatted and then walked to Tiger Fork in Blagden Alley, a contemporary bistro focusing on food of Hong Kong with a lot of small plate dishes. We were met by Meaghan Lynch and and had a fabulous meal which we really cannot adequately describe, but it included dumplings and dan dan noodles. We thoroughly enjoyed the company of Liz and Meaghan, both of whom are moving into new jobs. Liz will be at the Commerce Department in the Northwest Africa division and Meaghan, in the Pentagon now, will be moving to Brussels to work as a liaison with NATO. 

We left Washington around 8:30 and hit a LOT of traffic between Washington and Baltimore and saw more serious accidents than we think we have ever seen before. 

But, we made our way to Tarrytown, NY via a road we've never traveled - Route 9 N to the Tappen Zee Bridge along the Palisades. (now the Mario Cuomo Bridge, but we love the sound of the Tappen Zee) We are at a Hampton Inn and went into Irvington for Korean food (Go Su) which was very good.