Upon arriving in DC, I met up with my friend Matt and his roommate and headed out to Georgetown to have a few drinks. It turns out (and I’m not really surprised) that Matt has very little sense of direction. He kept claiming that he was taking me on a tour of the city, but when we ended up in a not so good area, I knew he didn’t know what he was talking about. Finally we make it to the area where the bar is supposed to be. Turns out again that Matt doesn’t know what he’s talking about. It had started raining and we were walking around all over the place looking for this bar and getting soaked. I decide to call 411 and get the address. Turns out that we weren’t really that close to the place, so it was back to the car to get lost again on our way. Finally we arrived at the Brickskeller which has one of the largest selections of beers I’ve ever seen. This place rivals the Flying Saucer for the number of beers to choose from. After sampling a number of different beers, we decided it was time to call it a night and head back to Matt’s place to get some sleep.
Saturday we finally got up and moving around noon. We hurried up, got ready, and headed to the Metro to head into DC. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen all of the monuments and I wanted to get some good pictures, so we walked around to all of the monuments. We went to Washington, WWII, Jefferson, FDR, Lincoln, Korean War, and Vietnam War memorials. There might have been a few others in there that I can’t remember right now. We also walked past the White House and decided we would see if we could get a tour the next day. By the time we were finished, it was time to head back to Matt’s to meet up with his girlfriend, Kathy, and his roommate, Gary. We then headed back into town to eat some Etheopian food and check out some bars. By the time we were done eating, it was around 11, so we went to one bar and then called it a night. It was 3am by the time we got back to Matt’s place.
After another late night, we were again slow at getting up on Sunday. Before heading into town, we decided to get some lunch at Five Guys. It’s an East Coast burger place that I’ve never been to before and it was pretty good. Again we jumped on the Metro and upon arriving in the city our first stop was the Old Post Office. We went up in the tower and had a good view of the city. This almost made up for not being able to get tickets to go up the Washington Monument. We then decided to see about a White House tour. It turns out that since 9/11 you can’t get a tour without talking to your Congressperson. With that plan out the window it was to the Air and Space Museum. I’ve been there before, but figured I would like to go there again. After the place closed we walked up towards the Capitol to see a few more buildings and so I could get more pictures. We decided to head back out of the city towards Matt’s place for dinner. We enjoyed a great meal of sushi with plenty of Saki and Sapporo to go around. After being out late the past two nights we decided to hang out at Matt’s place for the night and have a few drinks there. It ended up being another late night though even though we stuck around the place. Turns out Gary’s new Xbox 360 is quite addictive.
Once more we were off to another late start, but that didn’t stop us from heading to the International Spy Museum to check out what they had there. I was quite surprised and impressed with the place. It wasn’t all just spy equipment, but talked about spying that has gone on in many of the wars by various countries. After spending a few hours there, I wanted to go check out the National Cathedral. Ever since going to Rome last year, I’ve been more and more interested in checking out different churches to see the architecture and artifacts inside. Unfortunately the Cathedral was closed, but I did get some awesome pictures of the outside. We walked around the area for a bit and then decided to head back towards Matt’s place for dinner and an early night. My flight was at 6:50am so I had to be up at 4:30am to get ready to head to the airport. The flight back was quite uneventful, which was good. I made it back and headed straight to work after a great, but tiring weekend.