Donde esta the flag?

Today we decided to switch things up a bit. On our trek through downtown Washington, D.C., we did some video blogging.

Most of our traveling we did by foot today, so needless to say we were ready for wheelchairs by the day's end. Courtney's dad picked us up tourbooks for the trip, which I was adamantly against initially.

I'm a firm believer that Google solves all, so resorting to some book was a little too 1995 for my taste. However, I was proven wrong because that tour book got us to every one of our destinations. Thank you, Daddy Gunk!

We started off around 9 this morning as we left Mary Quinn's dorm on K and 24th street, heading down towards C street. We started walking aimlessly, when a black homeless man on an old yellow bike rides by.

Homeless man: Oh my, look at all this beauty so early in the morning.
Us: thanks? (keep walking)

I don't know what possessed me, but we had no idea where we were going so I decided to ask this man for directions.

Me: "Excuse me, do you know how to get to the National Mall?"
Homeless Man: Yep little lady, just take that'a road there, 23rd, all the way down to th' Lincoln Memorial.
Me: "Thanks!" (turn around and walk opposite direction very, very quickly.)

At this point, it strikes us that telling a stranger where we were headed for the day could possibly have an unfavorable ending, so we take 22nd street (it runs concurrently with 23rd) towards the National Mall.

A few minutes later, our friend finds us yet again. He rides by and shouts at us:

Homeless man: "Ladies! Ya goin' on the wrong street!"
Us: ---- (walking faster)

Fortunately, I think he got the hint he wasn't exactly commissioned as our tour guide and rode his rusty yellow bicycle elsewhere after that.

We eventually found our way around and walked from the World War II Memorial to the Washington Monument and down to the Lincoln Memorial, which happened to be the trail full of friendly joggers and fearless squirrels. Every ten seconds we were greeted by smiling, sweaty joggers and fat squirrels running around tourists' ankles.
























After a ten-mile hike around the National Mall, we went to check out the Holocaust Museum.

We spent a pretty intense two hours looking at the two specialty exhibitions and the permanent exhibit.

At the entrance of the permanent exhibit, each person gets to pick up an "identification card" of a real Jew who went through the Holocaust. At first Court and I thought our victims were mother and daughter, as they both had the last name Katz. Then we realized that Katz is the Jewish Jones so we nixed that idea.

We didn't leave the Holocaust museum until after 3 p.m., and lack of food and available bathrooms made both of us a little more than grumpy boots.

We went to lunch at the Old Ebbit Grill, a really neat restaurant about a block from the White House which is a popular spot for past and present Presidents. Which, by the way, has the most fantastic potato salad... highlight of the day.

After lunch, we walked by the White House. Not our favorite spot because, as Courtney says, "We were approximately a million miles away."

After we visited the White House, it was about 5 p.m., but I decided that hell or high water I was going to see the Capitol. Courtney, however, was not so pleased. (see the v-blog to see how it turned out!)

The White House

After we left D.C., we drove about 25 minutes west to stay with a family friend of Courtney's in Sterling, VA. Mary and her mother, Marion, have known Courtney's dad since the 70's and are letting us stay in their beautiful condo! Last night, we stayed in a one-room GWU dorm with two other girls; Tonight a spacious 2000+ square foot condo.

Random? That's what road trips are about. :)

New Jersey tomorrow!

xoxo

P.S. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KELSEY GRINER! <3