Philippi goes to Washington

Last weekend we headed to Washington DC. We stayed at the International Guest House (we'd recommend it!) about 4 miles from the Mall and museums, and mostly rode the buses to get around.

Saturday morning we went the American History Museum and the girls got tickets to go back to the Holocaust Museum later. Then we had a picnic lunch on the lawn.

We walked up to the Capitol Building, then split up for a few hours. While the girls went back to the Holocaust Museum, the McHugh's went to the Air and Space Museum and the Natural History Museum. One really nice thing about DC is that all of the museums are free, so we could see what we wanted without feeling like we had stay for hours to get our moneys worth!

Later, we all met up back by the Washington Monument and walked to the WWII Memorial, Lincoln Memorial and Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall. (Upon seeing the many names of those killed or missing in Vietnam, Ian asked "why is there even any war?" Good question, little guy.)

Calling ducklings at the WWII Memorial.

That night, after we finally got to the right bus stop, transferred and stayed on the right bus, we had Ethiopian food at a small restaurant near the guest house. It was the kind of place more frequented by locals than by tourists. Fun! We had to order by pointing since the lady seemed to know very limited English. We played Crazy Eights while she made our food.

Here we are enjoying our feast (most of us anyway!)
Everyone did try it, so we stopped for ice cream
later since they were good :)

After supper we drove to the White House. We walked around that block to see both sides of the White House, though apparently there isn't really a "front" or "back." And Heidi made the girls nervous by asking a couple of security guards questions (we now know that the flag on the White House does not indicate whether the President is home or not, but you don't know unless you ask!), and then complaining to another at the Treasury Dept that so many office lights were left on for the whole weekend! Talk about waste!

No matter what settings were used, we pretty much failed
to get "good" pictures of the back!

Sunday morning we went to the National Cathedral for church. We got there early and explored on our own. The service wasn't particularly moving for any of us, but it was an experience and the cathedral itself is beautiful, which led to discussions about whether God cares any more that you worship in a place like that or a humble little house? (It was agreed that God doesn't care, as long as God is present.)

After church, we headed to the National Zoo, also free but parking is a rip-off! It was wet and dreary, not really raining but not at all like our gorgeous weather Saturday. There we checked out the panda's, monkey's, elephants, small mammals, avoided the reptiles, kissed a frog, heard the male lion roar for several minutes and watched the lion cubs play.




















And finally late afternoon we departed from the International Guest House and drove home very exhausted.