Trip Review: Washington, D.C.

I’m back to traveling, kind of! Two weeks ago, Matt was asked to travel to Washington, D.C. for work. But since he has Southwest Airlines Companion Pass, that means I get to go along, too. For free! I wasn’t going to turn down the chance for a free vacation.

Luckily, it looks like many more trips to DC will be in our future! In fact, we’re here again right now. But last time, we decided to extend our stay through the weekend and really take in the sights. (Matt has to go into the office during the day.) Because it was our first time traveling in so long, I thought I would write a bit about what it was like in DC. We’re not in a post-COVID society quite yet, but things are still different from before we had vaccines. So, this is what it’s like to visit the U.S. capital in May 2021.

Travel & Transport

Early Monday morning, we boarded our flights to DCA (Reagan airport) from Kansas City. It was my first time on a plane since I returned home from Spain last summer. I was a little nervous flying, but I was hoping everyone would keep their masks on. And everyone did, so it felt relatively safe. Especially when the flights weren’t entirely full. Overall, flying felt weirdly normal. Like it hadn’t been almost a year since the last time I’d done it.

Besides the obvious plane travel, we also took two other types of transport when we were there: Uber/Lyfts, and the metro. These also felt really safe. The rideshare drivers wore masks and cracked the windows (even when it was raining) and took all the precautions they could. The DC metro, which may someday warrant its own post, was clean, efficient, and seemed safe from a COVID standpoint as well.

And, of course, we walked a lot. On an average day, my step count is usually somewhere between 200 and 500. (THAT’S SO BAD.) But in DC, I was walking between 6 and 10 miles a day! That was really great and made me feel like I was living in Spain again.

Food & Coffee

Food and coffee are undoubtedly two of my favorite things about traveling. Coffee is something I will splurge on when I’m away and can’t rationalize to myself that I “have coffee at home.” I’ve found a lot of really cute coffee shops and cafes to work from while I’m here, and some of them have indoor seating for people who are working and studying! For Five does coffee and cookies, and Compass Coffee is a local DC brand with a delicious Almond Butter Latte that I couldn’t stop thinking about. You can find it throughout the city!

 

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While Matt’s at work, I usually look for some sort of salad for lunch. He recommended Cava from the last time he was there, and I fell in love. It seems to be a chain, because it has locations all around, and now looking at its website I see it’s in quite a few states. But it’s not in Missouri, so while I try to support local brands, at least it’s not something I can get at home. I recommend the Greek bowl with “right rice.” It’s so good and big that I usually save half for breakfast the next day.

Dinners! Matt is kind enough to treat me to dinner each night because he’s making per diem, and I’m not. Here are a few of our favorite places we’ve tried over the past few weeks.

• Curry & Pie, Georgetown: This is good, affordable Indian food. You can tell everything is homemade. It’s in a cute little nook off the street in Georgetown. Apparently they even have Indian-inspired pizzas! But we didn’t try that… this time.
• Il Canale, Georgetown: Need somewhere fancy to eat Italian? Il Canale was by far our most expensive meal yet, but it was definitely worth it. We probably could have brought the price down if we hadn’t ordered an entire bottle of wine.
• The Capital Burger, Mt. Vernon Triangle: So far, this is the only place we’ve gone twice. That’s because Matt couldn’t stop thinking about it last week when we were home. It’s gourmet burgers and milkshakes, so what’s not to love?
• Soi38, Foggy Bottom/Dupont Circle: Thai food! I ordered the Panang — without rice — and the flavor of the curry alone BLEW ME AWAY. Like I had to keep pinching myself because it was that good. Matt ordered a wide egg noodle dish which was also really tasty. And I had a Lychee Daiquiri. Again, it got expensive, but it would have been cheaper without the alcohol. Long story short, Soi38 was amazing.

Doing D.C. Stuff

Over our (nearly) two weeks we’ve spent here, we’ve had plenty of time to explore all the sights. I’ve spent quite a bit of time at the National Mall, both during the day and at night. It’s so big and so central, it’s kind of hard to avoid it. Plus, it’s just fun to look at.

I’d been to D.C. two times before this — once in 2004, and the other time in 2016. I remembered a lot, but not everything. And of course, I’d never been here while COVID has been a thing. With the big news last week from the CDC, that masks aren’t necessary if you’re vaxed, I think things will keep changing. But here’s what the National Mall was like from a COVID perspective.

• Capitol Building: You can’t go up on the steps anymore, and it’s not due to COVID. There’s a big fence surrounding the lawn, courtesy of the January 6 insurrectionists.
• Washington Monument: You can walk around it and right up next to it, but no one is allowed to visit the top right now.
• World War II Memorial: Outdoors and no restrictions.
• Lincoln Memorial: Outdoors and no restrictions. The chambers at the top of the steps can get crowded, and many people wore masks for their own comfort, but it’s not required.
• Jefferson Memorial: Same as the Lincoln Memorial. But part of the dome is currently covered in scaffolding.

Because our hotel is in Rosslyn — a business district on the Virginia side, just across the Potomac River — we’re located really close to Arlington. Not just the neighborhood “Arlington,” but Arlington National Cemetery. I decided to walk there one day after I got my work done.

About five minutes into what should have been a 25-minute walk, my app told me, a pedestrian, to merge onto the highway. I decided “no thanks” and turned around. But I’d seen a shuttle bus outside the Rosslyn metro station a few times, so I headed there to see whether this particular shuttle could help me.

Turns out that there’s a metro station right outside the entrance to Arlington National Cemetery, but it’s under construction. Hence the shuttle bus, which is free! So I hopped on (masked of course) and rode it one stop to the cemetery. I got there at 4:15 p.m., and it closes at 5. I was curious how long they would let me stay.

I entered through the main Visitors Center, where they check your state- or government-issued ID and run your bag through a scanner. Unfortunately, everything else in the Visitors Center was closed. From a distance, I tried to read an information panel that had been cordoned off by a velvet rope, but a security guard told me to keep moving. There were signs inside, as well as throughout the cemetery, telling you which paths were one-way only and which ways to go.

Other signs also stated that masks must be worn even while outside, but this wasn’t enforced. And the ANC website actually states that they are currently only mandatory in the Visitors Center.

It was pretty late in the day, and it was Tuesday, so there wasn’t really anyone in the cemetery at all. I mostly just wandered. I found the Kennedy Eternal Flame, but it was also blocked off. This was in front of the Arlington House, which was also closed. But there’s a great panoramic view of the city from up there.

Not far away, I found the grave of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died in September 2020. (Matt and I were in Colorado when we got the news.) RBG is buried in an area with a bunch of other Supreme Court Justices, like Thurgood Marshall. But they haven’t even engraved her name on the headstone yet. It’s just her husband’s name right now, with a little plastic placard with “Ruth Bader Ginsburg” staked into the ground below. Some people had placed little stones on the grave, which I learned is a Jewish tradition when visiting a gravesite. So I left one, too.

I made my way out of the cemetery around 6 p.m., so it was nice to know they don’t kick you out right at 5. Then I caught the free shuttle bus back to Rosslyn.

 

Being in D.C. has been so much fun! (And expensive, and tiring… but I love it.) It’s so nice to feel just a little bit like my old traveling self again. And I hope there’s a lot more to come in the nearer-future. 🙂

What are your favorite things to do or see in Washington D.C.? Let me know in the comments!

–Cathy