Our Big Day in DC today started at the National Gallery of Art, where we had to burn a little time waiting for it to open. The kids entertained themselves by playing swords, which I'll get to in another post.
We love the National Gallery: the Vermeers and the Sculpture Gallaries were fantastic (Megan, being clever and full of Greek mythology, told us the stories behind all the Hellenistic statues). And of course, we heard quite a bit of giggling over the naked Hercules sculptures. (Giggling led by me but giggling nonetheless.)
From here we jumped on the Circulator Bus (it's a bus in DC that goes around and around a certain route) so we could get to the Washington Monument in time for our surprise tour. I say surprise because we had tried to get tickets online, but they were all gone. So Suzanne woke up early and got to the monument at around six in the morning to get tickets - even though the website was a bust, you can still get tickets if you get to the monument early enough.
This particular Circulator Bus went around the Mall and right to the Washington Monument, so it was a good bet for us, but as we were crossing in front of the Capitol, the bus driver pulled over and said, "We're going to stop here for 12 minutes."
Twelve minutes! Our tour was going to start in exactly 15 minutes. We wouldn't make it.
We begged and cajoled our driver to keep going, but she would have none of it. Instead, she got off the bus, got on her cell phone, and started eating a sandwich. So we in turn got off the bus and waited awkwardly. The handful of other people on the bus left as well, and walked around aimlessly looking at the Capitol.
Twelve minutes on the nose, our driver hopped back into her seat and fired up the bus. We rushed on and she took off, abandoning the other passengers (I think I saw them running after us). Of course, they could always catch the next bus, which had parked behind us during the stop (when we asked that driver to take us to the monument, he shook his head and told us he had to wait for our driver to eat her sandwich.)
We didn't make it in time to the Washington Monument, but since we ran to it from the bus stop we must have looked sad, pathetic, and wet (it had started raining) because the guard took one glance and let us in.
We had a great ride up the elevator, and we had great views of DC through the tiny windows at the top of the monument. It was fairly cramped up there, and it reminded us of the St. Louis arch. Fun Fact: the top of the Washington Monument is made out of aluminum, which was considered a rare and valuable material at the time.
Now I use it to wrap leftover pizza.
After leaving the monumnet we trod to the Air and Space Museum, first stopping at the Folk Festival on the mall to grab some lunch. I wanted something from the Welsh booth, but everything there looked far too heavy for a quick summer meal (and they had intimidating names such as Porc Pibwrlwrd and Cig Eidion a Pherlysiau). So instead we opted for the more traditional American meal of hotdogs (which I'm sure were full of ingredients with intimidating names as well). We ate under a large canopy. The man across from me kept burning his mouth on his Welsh stew. Sweat poured from his face.
The Air and Space museum was on hyper-overload, packed with people and strollers, and long chains of kids holding hands so they wouldn't lose someone in the mix. In one of the hands-on areas, where we were playing around with air pressure experiments, Alex and I heard a parent trying to explain how a ball was lifted in the air by the Bernoulli effect. "It's kind of like magic," said the dad.
That's when Alex looked at me and said flatly, "It's not magic. It's science."
(Our kids are full of awesomeness.)
By now we were starting to drag a bit, but we had to keep a reserve of energy for a bike tour of the DC that night, so we jumped on the red Circulator Bus to Chinatown where my magically scientific iPhone had discovered a Fuddruckers. And here, dear readers, is when we discovered Colleen's disturbing lack of patriotism.
I'm usually not a fan of televisions blaring while we're eating, but the one in the restaurant that afternoon was showing the Confederations Soccer Cup final between the U.S. and Brazil, so we couldn't help ourselves and had to watch. Oh, it was a close match, but in the end the U.S. lost.
And Colleen started cheering for Brazil. "Go Brazil!" she shouted.
"Hey!" said Suzanne. "What about the U.S. team? Cheer for them!"
"Go Brazil!"
It mattered not what we said, the combination of teen contrarian and wanna-be Brazilian was too much.
"Go Brazil!"
So we stomped off in ugly defeat, back to the hotel to rest up for our bike tour, Colleen being gleefully annoying.
The bike tour was Capital Sites @ Nite, and it was tremendous fun. Alex and I shared a tandem bike, with me in front and Alex behind. Since he wasn't happy with me riding in the back of the group there were times when he'd start pedaling frantically to put us in the lead. I'd simply coast and he'd do all the work. Refreshing! But after a few minutes of his super powered riding he'd whisper, "I'm going to take a break and sail now." That was my cue to pedal.
We rode around the mall, around the Capitol, and even to the National Japanese American Memorial where Megan rang the Memorial Gong. By the time we finished the three hour bike ride, the sun had set over the entire area, the air slightly rain infused, and we were ready to call it a night.
The walk back to the hotel was very easy, although I had been sneakily trying to look up ice cream places on my phone for a surprise. Unfortunately, the kids have special radar about ice cream, and they instantly knew what I was trying to do (how, how, how do that do that?). I found several supposed ice cream shops, but what the all-knowing Google maps says and what the real world says sometimes are two different creatures, so we finally ended at my fifth choice: Haagan Dazs in Chinatown.
And so, cones in hand and chocolate-faced, we wandered back to the hotel, ready to collapse. It had been a fun, foot brutalizing day.
But I shouldn't complain. After all, vacations aren't for relaxing! There's too much to do and see!
