The second part of our trip took us to Washington, DC. Since we were flying all the way to the east coast, and neither of us cared to see Orlando, we figured we might as well stop somewhere else on the way home. We settled on Washington. We stayed in an air B&B that was close enough to most attractions that we could walk and boy did we do a lot of walking. Thankfully the weather was not unbearably hot, so that we could actually walk without too much discomfort.
Washington is full of museums and our first stop was the Museum of the Bible. It was fascinating and had a lot more variety of exhibits than you might expect. One of my favourites was the gallery of paintings of the Old Testament prophets. Another favourite was an interactive walkthrough of the Old Testament. We ended up going to the museum twice because there was so much to see on so many floors. Of course we stopped at the White House, Library of Congress, the Washington monument. They all felt grandiose and historic. We also went to several Smithsonian museums. I loved the art in the National Gallery. I loved seeing Julia Child's actual kitchen in the National Museum of American History. We went to the Botanical Gardens and Capitol Hill. We did a lot of touristy things every day and a tonne of walking. But, we also had time for leisurely lunches and hanging out and of course coffee. The best was Ebenezer's Coffeehouse which was an old crack house purchased by a church and now funding missions and community outreach. The coffee was delicious, but the story of how the cafe came to be made it taste that much better.
In the evenings we were pretty exhausted so we cooked a late dinner at home, did laundry, watched tv and planned our next day.
On Sunday, we walked to the local Baptist church. Good thing we got there early because it was packed! The church was full of all ages and had a wonderful, warm and welcoming atmosphere. The sermon was on Revelation which was cool as we are actually currently studying Revelation together. The songs were more traditional and I loved that there was a real piano. (Electric pianos are stupid.)
Surprisingly, we did hardly any shopping on the whole trip. In Orlando, we did go to one mall and buy a couple of things. In Washington there were no malls in the city centre. No big deal since prices in the US continue to be crazy compared to what they used to be. But, I might have squealed with delight when we happened upon a TJ Maxx and Nordstrom Rack by chance....
