Travel Tuesday: Washington DC

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Before we start, a little side note about my travel schedule. As you know, I was in Hilton Head for the weekend with some friends. I was originally flying out of Savannah last night BUT the blizzard in New York has me stranded until Wednesday. So instead of being alone for a few days in SC, I changed my flight to fly out of Charlotte and drove back with Caitlin. Ugh, right? Thanks for all the check up tweets/emails! All is well. Just avoiding the weather by not going home haha.

I'm (obviously) a weekend behind with my Travel Tuesday posts. I will recap my trip to Hilton Head next week so be sure to check back!

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FRIDAY

Today we're recapping my trip (from two weekends ago) to DC. I had been there once before last year with Andrew (you can recap day 1 and day 2 here) and we loved it. We were able to fit so much into two days there and going back this time we were ready for a more relaxing visit.

We left early from work and hopped on a train down to DC. What's great about living on the East Coast and especially in New York is that there are so many accessible cities a train ride away. We take the Amtrak down and it's really easy. They have comfortable seats, on board restrooms and Wifi! Next thing we knew we were there.

Sweater / Watch / Bracelet / Wallet

This time we stayed at the Donovan House Hotel and loved it. The hotel itself was very cool, modern and was the perfect little boutique hotel for our trip. I love hotels like this because they really take time to style and manage their hotel to keep up with the uber cool feel.

We were welcomed with a bottle of wine, a plate of cheese and a killer view. The staff were also very welcoming, helpful and were always on top of their game. I would recommend checking out the hotel if you're visiting the area. It ended up being the perfect location too. Just a simple walk in any direction brought you to all the places you needed to be in DC.

Andrew had to pull me away from these hanging chairs... Like a rocking chair by 10x better!

Shoes (on sale!) / Leggings / Jacket / Sweater

Did I mention the view?!

Shoes / Jeans / Poncho / Sweater

After we dropped our bags, we were off the the Warner Theatre to see John Mulaney! The theatre was beautiful inside and we had a great time at the show. It was my first time seeing a stand up show and they are so much better in real life. I couldn't stop smiling. We also managed to snag some killer seats (like front front row) and that was an equally cool experience.

SATURDAY

On Saturday we were welcomed with some beautiful weather. Our last trip to DC was met with lots of clouds and snow so seeing the sun this time around really made a difference.

One of the things I wanted to do last trip but didn't get to was to go to the top of the Washington Monument. I wanted to climb to the top (I have this bucket list need to climb to the top of famous monuments) but there was only an option to take the elevator. And that's what we did.

Scarf / Jacket

We didn't have tickets ahead of time, so we woke up early, met our friends Dan and Kaylee and went right when it opened to avoid a crazy long line. We ended up waiting about 15 minutes and then walked right up. It was really exciting to see from the top. You could see just about all the surrounding states. That's how high up we were. There was also a lot of really cool information about the building of the monument. Did you know that it's two different colors because there was a pause in construction due to lack of money caused by funding the Civil War? They picked back up the building process 25 years after they first started!

The views were breathtaking (just don't look down) and would be even more amazing in the spring when everything is bright and beautiful! I would definitely check it out next time you're in town.

After the monument we walked over to the Archives and then we were off to brunch. DC does this bottomless all-you-can-eat AND drink brunch thing and of course we had to take advantage. We ended up finding a table at Masa 14 and had ourselves a four hour brunch. I'm pretty sure we ordered one of everything from the menu and about six pitchers of mimosas. #yolo kids.

Sunglasses / Poncho / Sweater

After that whirlwind of a brunch, we watched the UK game and took a nice long nap to rest up before dinner.

Last year we found this amazing place called Firefly. It's a little farm to table restaurant near Dupont Circle. To this day we still talk about how amazing our dinner was -- it was that memorable -- so of course we had to find our way back this trip. And alas, the meal was just as good as I remembered!

SUNDAY

On Sunday we were met with rain (boooo) and made our way to Busboys and Poets for brunch. Brunch. was. ahh-mazing. The place was such a cool spot. Like a library/restaurant/coffee shop that I obviously can't explain, but I hope you just get it haha.

After brunch we had time to kill and went to the international spy museum. My phone was pretty much dying so I wasn't able to take a lot of photos but it was a good time. Only regret was not taking the option of the "operation spy" tour. It's like a interactive tour where you actually pretend your a spy and have an adventure. I personally am convinced that it's a secret recruiting agency for spies but that's just me...

After that we had a few more hours before our train ride home and we went to dinner at Bluejacket Brewery near the water. The food was 10x better than anything you'd ever expect and it was like a new age brewery (aka cool ambiance). If you're there get the sweet potato gnocchi! Heaven in my mouth. All and all it was a great ending to the weekend.