DC

The alarm was set for 5:30! After a quick shower, we were on the road. After a funeral procession and lots of traffic, we arrived in Vienna at around 9:30 and took the metro to DC. When we got to DC we headed straight to the Zoo. We saw lions and tigers and bears oh my! (aka zebra, gorillas, pandas, hippos) We went to a picnic area and ate the yummy pb&j and snacks that Matt packed for us. Then it was back to the metro. We walked through the Federal Triangle and then went to the Smithsonian Museums. Our first stop in the National Mall was the Smithsonian Castle. Then we went to the Hirshhorn Museum where we saw a giant naked man sculpture. Then we walked next door to the Air and Space Museum. From there, we walked out into the center of he "Mall" and got some photos of the Capitol building. Then we took a long walk to the American History Museum which was filled with tons of artifacts of American popular culture and history (Lincoln's hat and Dorothy's ruby slippers to name a couple). Matt walks really fast and I had to remind him to slow down a lot but we walked close to the Washington Monument and a very nice Asian man took a couple photos of us by the monument. Then we walked over to the White House...we saw Obama playing in the front yard with his dog and he asked us to come in and have dinner. Only playing, but we did get some neat pictures of the White House and their sneaky secret service people. After that we made an attempt to walk to the Lincoln Memorial but the storm clouds had a different idea for the outcome of our day. We quickly made our way back to the metro. We made it down the stairs right as it began to rain. We rode the metro back to Vienna and ran to the car. It stormed most of the ride home. We stopped at Ponderosa (all you can eat buffet) for dinner. I got some pics of the sunset, a beautiful rainbow, and some lightening! We fell asleep almost immediately after we got home. I had a great time with Matt today....it was a long day filled with fun. He was very sweet and we had a great adventure exploring the city together.