Happy Fourth of July!

So, long weekend of fun. Joy arrived Saturday morning at 6am, got to my house around 8, we had Starbucks and Mimi's muffins on my front porch (yup, she brought muffins all the way from California...that's commitment!). We then left the house and headed for Georgetown. We walked around Georgetown for a while and ate at this cute fire oven pizza place, the first of many delicious meals in DC. We then walked down to the canal and then down to Washington Harbor. Checked out the scene, then walked over to the Kennedy Center, where we took a much need break in the air conditioning on their fancy black leather couches. Joy almost took a nap, but I convinced her it might not be the classiest thing ever. We did see other nap takers later, and realized it might not have been that out of place. We then headed across the Potomac to Arlington Cemetary. That was the hottest part of the walk, no shade relief on the bridges, just hot asphault.
Arlington was cool, we saw the eternal flame for JFK, watched the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and checked out the Lee Memorial (really, just to use the bathrooms, and to get directions). We ended up walking all over the cemetary, it was quite the workout. We opted to take metro back, if for nothing more than to get some time in the a/c. We then walked back from the metro to Washington Harbor and had dinner at this fancy Mexican Restaurant (which had nothing on the Alamo).
Then back to the Kennedy Center to take in some theater (and some coffee, since Joy was running on Thursday night's sleep and I was running on the five hours from the night before). We saw Little Women, which just opened and was actually done really well. The Kennedy Center has a student deal for cheap tickets, and they ended up being great seats, right in the middle on the Orchestra level. The view from the Kennedy Center is amazing, right down the Potomac, and intermission fell right after sunset, making for some nice pictures. After the show we headed home, making it back to the house about 1am and falling into bed. We were both exhausted, and slept well into the next morning.
Sunday morning was slow, and we made it to Starbucks around 11 for some coffee. We finished the last of the Mimi's muffins and jumped on the bus to the metro station. Joy loved the buses, I think they were her favorite part of the trip (or maybe it was just the fact that we had no options, so she had to love the bus, just like I have learned to love the bus). Another walk in the hot sun got us to the National Cathedral, which was pretty amazing. Basically, this prepared us nicely for our trip to Europe, getting to walk througha very fancy old historical church. The Cathedral was beautiful, despite the construction we came upon when we first arrived. Also, it was air conditioned, which helped us enjoy the experience that much more.

We checked out the individual rooms and the gift store, even the random bathrooms tucked in everywhere, and the continued on our way. We got on a bus and back on metro, and then took the train down to Alexandria, where I was two weeks ago. This time we explored the food and shopping a little bit more. We ate at this place called The Fish Market, which was great seafood (I actually just had a tuna sandwich, but this was lunch, there was Pop's Old Fashioned Ice Cream next door, so we didn't want to fill up too much). Apparently they had a good deal on crab legs, but neither of us were willing to spend $38 for all you can eat crab legs. So, we did the seafood, we did the amazing sundaes next door (of course), and then walked around until it started to pour rain. We went into a book store, hung out there, eventually decided to each buy a book, went across the street to a really cute cafe, and sat and drank coffee and read our books. This is vacation, nothing needed other than coffee and a book...life was good. Eventually the rain subsided and we took the boat tour back to Georgetown. There was lightening sort of following behind us, but it never caught up and we made it safely without getting struck by the lightening. I like this boat tour, it is nice to be out on the river, always much cooler than on land, with the breeze and such, and the scenery is always beautiful and everchanging.


After arriving at the Washington Harbor, we then walked back down Pennsylvania Avenue, past the White House to Hotel Washington. Now, this is a place that a guy from work recommended. Up at the top of the hotel is a cafe that is a covered outdoor restaurant. It overlooks the White House grounds and you can see the monuments from your seats. We sat right on the edge and had a nice view of everything below. It was amazing, one of the coolest views from a restaurant I have ever seen:

(Ok, so you can't see the view necessarily, but it was cool) (and yea turn your head left for the last one, I am not sure why it displays sideways, but such is life).

So, after a late dinner and a LONG wait for the bus, we made it again, this time a little earlier (like 12:30am), and fell into bed again. The painful part of this was the alarm that went off at 7am the next morning so I could get to work. Yup, me and the four others who worked the 3rd of July sort of rolled into work right around 9am. It was lovely, expecially when we found the heat to be on in our offices (heat? why heat? why would the heat ever be on this time of year?). Joy spent the morning checking out the monuments while I hung out and sweated at work for a while. I then met her and we had lunch and then headed home. The heat outside was getting to be unbearable for a third straight day, so we decided to spent some time in the a/c, I promptly fell asleep and woke up two hours later.
Monday night we met up with our friend Heidi from high school, who lives in Maryland now. Neither of us had seen her since JOy's wedding a year ago, so it was a nice reunion. We dropped some money and a gift card at the Cheesecake Factory and then got the tour of Heidi's life, past and present, c/o Heidi's boyfriend, Josh. It was really nice to just hang out, no pressure, we even had a car, which I have come to greatly appreciate since I have arrived in DC. We spent some time catching up at Heidi's house, and even checked up on some old HS friends via MySpace, despite none of us having a MySpace account. You really can find out a lot just by typing in names. Here are come pictures from the evening:




So then came the big day, the whole point of being in DC in the summer: The Fourth of July. We sort of slept in, got up and hung out for a while, just chatting. Then we made our way up to Silver Spring. We had lunch at Panera, my favorite sandwich place in Sacramento, so it reminded me of home. We then decided to escape the afternoon heat by seeing a movie. We checked out The Devil Wears Prada, which was actually pretty good, although not as good as the book. The plan was to then go into Cars and check that out, but somehow we exited the theater accidentally, and our double feature plans were ruined. We walked around the mall for a while, and of course, the sky opening up while were inside and the rain started to come down...hard. We originally tried to brave the rain, but gave up and sat in Starbucks until it let up. The we got onto metro and went into downtown DC. After walking around for a while decideing where to eat dinner (does it sound like all we do it eat? Really we do more, but apparently the food is important or something...). We finally decided in this cool Irish pub, again in prep for our Europe trip this Christmas. It was really fun inside, and the food was amazing, probably our favorite restaurant of the weekend:


So, after dinner we headed down the mall. I was expecting chaos, but actually was surprised at how calm it was. I mean, there were definitely a lot of people on the mall, and security was there, but the lines were minimal and the back pack check was quick, totally could have gotten wine in. Anyway, we walked toward the Capitol and found a spot right in front of the gate in front of the pond. We were behind the big concert stage, this was out view of the Capitol and the Monument:


We were right behind the place where the Marines had set up their cannons to fire off (which, incidently, gave us all heart attacks when it happened). So, there was a concert that featured Jason Alexander (didn't know he could sing eh? He can't really, but it was interesting), Elmo, Vanessa Williams, JoDee Messina, Michael Bolton (I think) and Stevie Wonder. Stevie played as the fireworks started, that was really cool. And the fireworks were amazing, right behind the Washington Monument. Like nothing I have ever seen. And the chaos afterwards was minimized by a quick trip for dessert. So, at the risk of cutting this blog short, I will leave you with some pictures from the big night, and update more later in the week.
Happy Fourth everyone!