Washington, D.C. Day One | Reunion, Memorials, and A Milkshake

So quick update before the main blog, I think that when I travel, I won’t do daily posts because I want to enjoy the trip without worrying about posting. I am currently in Massachusetts and I will post once a day for what I did in Washington, D.C. The family and I had a great time, and I can’t wait to start college there!

Our first day in D.C. was a good one. Mom and I left Massachusetts at 10:30 and Dad and Emma left Florida at 8:30. We met at our hotel, the Topaz Hotel, hugged, and then walked to brunch. I had read about this bookstore-slash-café in THIS article and I knew that I would love it. Kramerbooks is right off of Dupont Circle and has a great outside patio that we sat on. First, we were served a selection of fruit and breakfast breads. We talked about what we had done over the past three weeks over our delicious meals. Steak and eggs for me, scrambled eggs with bacon for Emma, soft-shell crab and eggs for Mom and a Cubana sandwich for Dad.

Then we decided to walk to the White House for some obligatory photos and then down to the Washington Monument. From there we walked down the National Mall to the World War II memorial. I had never seen that one and it was really beautiful. We were able to dip our feet in the water, which was AMAZING because my feet were getting tired.

Doesn't Emma look adorable? 

After resting, we walked down to the Vietnam memorial, which is just hauntingly beautiful. I was telling Emma why it looks the way it looks and we walked slowly around it. I also took pictures of the women’s memorial.

We headed back to the hotel to rest before meeting Ashley, who we saw a few weeks ago while driving up to Boston. We let her suggest the restaurant and she chose the Hamilton, which she said was one of her go-to restaurants in DC. Let me just say, this place was HUGE! The food was good and we got to talk about life in DC.

I got a delicious chocolate milkshake that I savored throughout dinner and Emma snuck in a few sneaky sips while I wasn’t looking! For an appetizer we got California Rolls, Emma’s favorites, Spicy Crawfish Rolls, and tuna tartare, which I have just started to like.

Look at that! Yum! My tummy is growling now!

As far as dinner goes, I got the grilled pork chop with polenta and rainbow chard. It was yummy and tasted like comfort food. Emma has recently been in a BBQ ribs/pulled pork phase and it started with this pile of pulled pork on top of mac & cheese on top of a piece of bread with onion strings on the very top. I did not think that she would finish it, but she got close!

We didn’t have room for dessert so we took a cab back to the hotel to rest well before our full day of sightseeing the next day.

Thanks for reading!