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December 12, 2005
Washington D.C.
Seymen and I had a WONDERFUL time in D.C.!!! Everything worked out perfectly! Even with the delays due to snow on the East Coast on Friday. Our plane was delayed for an hour and a half, but since we were checking from home, it worked out perfectly. We arrived in Baltimore and got our rental car. We ended up "haggling" the guy @ Hertz and got an upgraded car with the "Never Lost" Navigational system (GPS). Well, thinking we were all high tech...we started out on our 37 mile drive from BWI to our hotel. Since we were late, we ended up cancelling our dinner plans with Uncle Don, and half way there re-routed ourselves to Levantes, a Turkish restuarant on 19th Street. That would be 19th St. NE...NOT NW, or SE, or SW or whatever...Well Debbie our GPS (Which we named due to the long amount of time we spent listening to her voice) sent us to what we can only describe as the Ghetto of D.C. That was the first address that I (Yes, personal accountability) typed in. That was clearly not the right place, since it was a dead end, so we tried another location...again what I typed in. That took us a few blocks over, across some big main street, and to another dead end in a different Ghetto. :-) Throughly confused and fustrated with Debbie and the Typer ;-) (and starving to death because it was 10:15 at this point) Seymen took over the typing and found the restuarant in the Yellow Pages of Debbie. FINALLY!!! We made it to Dupont Circle, where we managed to sit (around the block from the Restuarant) for 10 minutes. We made it just in the nick of time though! The restuarant closed at 11:00PM and we get there at 10:35. We had the most delicious Turkish meal (for it being in the U.S. and all) of Lentil Corba (Pronounced: Chorba, Means Soup in Turkish). Seymen was in heaven!!! And Cigars (Felio dough with feta cheese and some other stuff), Pide (kind of like a spicy pizza with Beef), and Lamb Siskabob. (Pronouced: Shiskabob) It was delicious :-)
The next morning, Seymen and I ventured out into the city. We found our way to the subway (with a little trouble since there was no "I" street where the subway stop was supposed to be, come to find out, it was 1 block over), and 20 minutes later we were seated in a very nice, CLEAN metro car! (Which ironically was made by Alstom, a company Seymen worked for during co-op!) We went to the White House (Dissapointed to find out you can't go in unless you make reservations 6 months ahead through your congressman), saw the National Christmas Tree, the Washington Monument, and the WWII memorial. (If you can't tell from the pics. we spent a lot of time on the National Mall.) Afterwards, we headed back to the hotel so we could leave for the Eastern Shore.
We (Seymen, Debbie and I) drove to Uncle Jim and Aunt Margy's with no problems...well relatively no problems...if you don't count when we couldn't find their house which was 3 house away! We spent the rest of the afternoon with them until they had to run out to a holiday party. Seymen and I stayed at the house watching "Decorating the White House 2005" HGTV Special that they had recommended. We learned all about the decorations and saw the different rooms in the White House on TV. Shortly after, Uncle Jim and Aunt Margy's nephew (technically my cousin?) arrived with his wife Elenor. I don't think that I have ever met Sam, or if I did was very little. But they were so friendly. THey had just come back from a party at the White House!!! So we compared notes, and shared what we learned on the HGTV special with them, while they shared their "real life" experience! It was really a nice night, talking and eating a delicious dinner.
Seymen and I headed back to the City later that night. In the morning, Uncle Don drove in and met us at our hotel, and took us on a walking tour of D.C. We went back to the national mall and saw the Vietnam memorial, Lincoln Memorial, Korean Memorial, (WWII again, and Washington Monument again), and then hit up two museums...the Smithsonian American History museum and the Air and Space museum. Seymen loved them both. It was hard to keep track of him and Uncle Don. They were both all over the place :-) The Air and Space museum was the last of our stops. By that time I was beat from walking all over in the cold...so I suggested that we leave a little early and have a beer to "warm up" :-) Uncle Don took us to this Ole "E" something grill, that I can't remember the name, but mentioned that it was one of Bill's favorite places. We sat there re-cooping for the walk to the Metro for a little while, and then headed back to the Hotel so we could pick up our car and Debbie and go back to the airport.
So, that's our trip! Blow by Blow! Check out the pics that go with the Story. We were both exhausted last night, (hence the late posting of the pics) and today my legs were so sore from walking all over D.C. that I could barely walk. I feel so old!!
Posted by beth at December 12, 2005 10:53 PM