I like traveling Eastwards for getting sleep -- we always seem to go to bed earlier than we normally would and then sleep in to normal times (or even later). Case in point for today: there was so much sleeping in that we did not actually make it down to breakfast until about 11:30.
This was the gingerbread house made by the Pastry team. I was very impressed. I've never seen such a large gingerbread house made with REAL gingerbread and candy and frosting!
Really helps bring the old fairy tale to life. I've always been like, yeah right, who really would just start eating a house in the middle of the forest? But...let's just say I had quite an internal struggle on whether they would REALLY miss a jelly belly...
Breakfast was included in the hotel reservation so we all got to indulge a bit:
Yes, that's right, avocado toast and pancakes...with a side of two LARGE chocolate croissants per child.
After such a filling brunch, we needed to work off those calories! Well...turns out pancake energy does not last very long. It was only a 20 min walk to our first museum (all downhill, I would add), but we still stopped at least twice for "moments to enjoy the scenery."
Today is National Museum of American History day -- mostly known to me (and anticipated by twins) as First Ladies' Gowns museum. It was actually more impressive as an adult I thought, maybe because some of the older examples had come back around to being stylish again. Alas, we were so busy critiquing and complimenting that we took zero photos.
The museum also has the contemporary pop culture portion, where we found Dorothy's shoes:
And Constance Wu's dress from Crazy Rich Asians!
We spent a long time at the interactive exhibit on protests and voting. Some of the twins' position really surprised me.
Star-Spangled Banner exhibit was also very cool -- no photos allowed of the real flag that flew over Baltimore inspiring the anthem so we took a snapshot with the cool metal one outside the exhibit:
This was also our monument day, so we started off at Jefferson Memorial's Tidal Basin view of the Washington Monument. Learning moment: why is the Washington Monument not called the Washington Memorial? Google claims it's because Memorials are started after a person dies and the Washington Monument was actually first approved while Washington was still alive. I am not sure this is actually accurate (following the sources from the Google answer was not super reassuring), but I didn't see any better suggestions so we will go with that for now!
I think the Jefferson Memorial doesn't get as many visitors because it's a little more out of the way, but it's a pretty impressive structure.
Twins are pretty good photographers!
After the Jefferson, we hopped on the Circulator to visit one of the newest monuments -- MLK Memorial. I had never been myself, so this was pretty cool.
And then of course the quintessential DC monument: Lincoln Memorial.
It was a really nice day, and the weekend before Thanksgiving, so...here's a shot that shows the level of crowds:
That was the end of our monuments tour. The twins were ready for some hotel resting, so I dropped them off before heading to one more Smithsonian stop with Baba: National Portrait Gallery.
We looked at all the presidential portraits of course, and of the remainders, this was my favorite:
So ends our second day. A quick detour here to gush about our newly minted favorite travel accessory: the travel hotpot/steamer! I almost forgot to pack this and we threw it in last minute -- but boy was it appreciated. Two nights in, we had already polished off all five of our ramen bags. As a child, I always used to pooh-pooh my parents for cooking instant noodles in the coffee pots every night, but now I totally get it!! So comforting to have a bowl of warm soup at the end of a long travel day!
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