DC Trip - Part 2

Let's finish up this nice little recap of our trip to DC.

On Saturday we ate breakfast at the hotel (it was a mad house!).  Then we walked to a small farmer's market they were having in Downtown Silver Spring.  We walked around and the rest of them decided to get some coffee.  I just had some water.

Then we headed to the metro station and headed to the ballpark

On the way in

The weather was gorgeous and our seats were pretty amazing too.  The kinda funny thing is we were in the first row of our section and when we sat down the kid behind us started complaining loudly about how we blocked his view... oh kid.
 

view from our seats

We also managed to get a nice group shot.

We had a couple of beers and some random food.  It was crazy how long EVERY line was for food... never seen anything like that before... but to me DC is standing in line, so I shouldn't be too surprised.

After the game we headed over to a bar called Iron Horse.  We went there to watch the end of the Blues game.  And man - what an exciting game!  The Blues tied it up with only 6 seconds left to push it into overtime.  They ended up winning and my dad was excited to say the least...

(reenactment)

We then headed up the street to go to dinner at Matchbox.  This was also a pizza joint, and very delicious.  We ate way too much food while we were there!

Chinatown where the bar and dinner were located

We headed back to Silver Spring, but had to wait forever because of the Metro system on the weekends (annoying), but we finally made it back.

The next morning (our last) we got up and checked out of the hotel.  We went to Founding Farmers for Easter Brunch.  It's pretty popular in the DC area.  We had a little trouble with our reservation and at first thought we were going to have to eat outside.  Luckily they accommodated us inside by adding a chair to a booth. 

All the food was delicious looking.  Usually I'm more of a savory breakfast person, but decided to go with New Orleans Style Stuffed French Toast with Bananas Foster topping.  It was so so good.  It was like dessert. 
 

F-ing French Toast (quote from a movie)

We headed up to Baltimore and stopped by a museum (it was free and cannot remember what it's called) and to stop by the grave of Edger Allen Poe.  Then Keith took us to the airport where we said our goodbyes and headed back home (which was the worse flight I've been on because of the pressure in my sinuses... blah)

Overall it was a wonderful trip.  Of course I would rather Keith leave closer, but DC is a nice alternative because there's so much to see and do there. A special thank you to my dad and Janet for taking me with them.  It was really a lot of fun!

DC Trip - Part 1

I'm going to do something a little different here... I am first going to get the negative part of my trip out of the way first, that way I don't have to mention it again and you can see truly how much fun I did have.  The only negative part of this trip was that I got sick... I think with allergies.  It hit me like a ton of bricks.  I felt fine all day Thursday and sometime that night I started to get a headache, which continued the next day.  Then the nose started running and the sneezing and a stomach ache (not sure if that's related or not, but throwing it in there).  It sucked.  Then when we headed back home on Sunday - well the pressure already in my sinuses combined with the pressurized cabin of the airplane made it like a million times worse.  I ended up calling in sick Monday and went home early on Tuesday.  It's currently Wednesday and I'm beginning to feel a lot better, however I'm still fairly congested (I sound like I'm holding my nose when talking)  So there's the bad... it's out of the way!

Back to the good part - last week/weekend my dad, step mom, Janet, and me went to visit my brother in DC.  We picked this particular weekend because the Cardinals were playing the Nationals in DC and thought it would be a fun time to go. 

We left on Wednesday evening.  Our flight got into Baltimore around 9pm.  While we were waiting for our plane in St. Louis we had some food at Chilis and I had a margarita!

Been craving one

When we got into DC Keith and his girlfriend, Sarah, picked us up at the airport and we headed to Silver Spring, where they live.  Once we got up to the hotel and got situated (I got the pleasure of sleeping on a roll-away bed, but that's not me complaining) we went out for some drinks at an Irish pub close to their house - McGinty's.  We had a couple of drinks and then headed back to the hotel.  It was getting kinda late at that point (for me at least)

On Thursday we woke up and got ready at a leisurely pace.  Keith had to work and Sarah had other plans so we decided to check out the Newseum.  With the help of an app on my phone I got us all there in one piece by navigating the metro system and walking - I'm not going to lie, I was pretty proud of myself.

I originally took this b/c I thought they were cherry blossoms, but now I'm not so sure they are... may have been what caused my allergies though...

The Newseum was really pretty neat.  While it talks about journalism (both written and visual) there's a lot about general things that happened in the news.  We spent a lot of time there, and still wasn't able to see everything.  Tickets are good for two days, but we only spent one there.

Outside they had the front page papers of each state.  Here's St. Louis!  They also had these inside as well.  Since I am lame or something I counted how many papers had a cover story about the ferry disaster in South Korea - out of the 40 papers I counted, 18 had that story on the front page somewhere.

They have a lot of cool things in the Newseum, but one of the neatest is the Berlin wall.  Here's a piece you could touch.

Dave was here (like Kilroy haha get it? no?)

They also had a big piece of the wall.  The West Berlin side was all graffetied up while the East Berlin side was clean.

Very interesting, and something that happened in my lifetime which is hard to believe.  Although I was pretty young when the wall came down.

 

They also had an FBI exhibit which talked about famous events - Gangsters, civil rights, Lindbergh baby kidnapping, Unibomber (including his cabin), 9/11 and other terrorist acts, Oklahoma City bombing and Waco.

Dad posing with a gangster

Next we went up to the top floor which had a fantastic view of the Capitol Building.  I used an app my mom recommended to get these pics - Pro HDR Free - they kind of look photo shopped.

Another one of the most interesting things at the museum was 9/11 and it's coverage.  September 11th happened when I was a senior in high school.  They show a video about the news coverage that day and people who were there reporting it.  I cried...

This was the antenna on top of one of the towers

Wall of front pages the day after 9/11 happened

This picture I took a couple of floors up, but goes with the Berlin wall stuff - this is the "Death Tower" which was on the East Berlin side and would watch for people trying to flee to West side.  Their orders were to kill.

Another one of the good exhibits there was they have every Pulitzer Prize winning photographer.  It was a very interesting room and pretty sad because a lot of those photos show poverty, hardship, war, etc.  I didn't get any photos in this area.

Finally they had an Anchorman exhibit.  I walked through it in about 5 minutes - there wasn't much other than some props and costumes.

60% of the time it works every time

Here's a funny t-shirt I found in the gift shop...

After finishing up at the Newseum we headed over to close to the stadium.  We met Keith and Sarah at a micro-brewery, Bluejacket.  It was very good and had an awesome selection of beer.  It was around this time my phone died sadly.

 

After some drinks and food we headed over to the ballpark.  It was a great game and the Cardinals won 8-0.  The game was REALLY cold though, so we didn't stay too too long, but longer than we originally thought we would.

 

We headed back to Silver Spring and went back to McGinty's to watch the end of the game and the Blues game.  I stayed at the bar for the first overtime, but then headed back to the hotel.  I watched the second overtime there and then went to sleep... of course I missed when they actually scored in the third overtime to win the game.

 

On Friday we were pretty worn out from all the walking and missed breakfast at our hotel.  So instead we went to french place in Silver Spring - La Madeleine.  It was a very tasty breakfast!  During this time we tried to find tickets to Saturday's baseball game since it was a day game and we wouldn't freeze to death.  We planned to go to the Holocaust museum that day, but instead decided to drive around DC and take in the sights this way.  I will say I never want to be a driver in DC, but Keith did a great job.  We drove by a lot of the monuments and different areas of DC. 

 

We ended up eating at Comet Ping Pong. We ordered several different kinds of pizza and it was all very delicious.  We ended up heading back to Keith and Sarah's where we watched the Cardinals game and played Heads Up during commercials.  It was a very nice night.

 

Comet Ping Pong

Original Artwork in their apartment, you could talk about this picture for hours!

I'll be back to recap the final two days very soon.

Five Places to Visit in St. Louis

Since I've done a bit of traveling, and we visit certain things in each city - it made me think about what things would I tell someone to visit if they were a tourist in St. Louis.  I'm sure there are a bunch of these lists and I'm sure that I'm probably missing something so cool and so neat that it's just downright shameful... BUT I do know somethings about his city and thought I'd put together a list of things I think people should do when they come to St. Louis.

1. The Gateway Arch aka Jefferson National Expansion Memorial:  I love the Arch... let me say that first.  It's truly amazing!!  I will never get sick of looking up at it.  That being said after I've been up there like billion times while working there I do think the trip to the top can be overrated and overpriced.  I still think that if you've never done it before and/or are visiting St. Louis it's one of the things that you should just do!  The tram ride to the top is different and an experience in itself.  While looking out the windows is neat for awhile the better part is seeing the floor curve and being able to stand at the tip-top of the Arch.  The other cool thing is you might even be lucky enough to feel it sway.  I'll tell you from working there I only felt it truly sway a handful of times - although visitors swore they were feeling something (they weren't), but it's quite the experience if you do get to see it.  Another thing:  If you can't see the top of the Arch when you are on the ground you will not be able to see much looking out.  I could probably go on way too much about the Arch because it is near and dear to my heart... so I'll spare you some details - So... just go there.  Also, you can visit another National Park Site!!
   
 
2. Forest Park:  I'm cheating a bit with this one - because you could spend multiple days at Forest Park, but I only have five places on my list and I could come up with five places within Forest Park alone.  The park covers over 1,300 acres.  I can't remember the stat exactly but it's on scale with New York's Central Park in size.  The nice thing about St. Louis is a lot of our museums and our zoo are free to get into!  Some of the things at Forest Park include the St. Louis Zoo, Art Museum, History Museum, Science Center, and the Boathouse.  All of these places are wonderful, but of course there's even more that's not listed.  You should also just drive around the park - there's a lot to see!! 
   
 
3. Grant's Farm:  I grew up just down the street from Grant's Farm, meaning I saw it pretty much every day.  I love Grant's Farm.  I love that it's free to get into (you can't really get by without paying to park which is $12 if I remember correctly)  There are many things to see here but my favorites are seeing the shows and feeding the baby goats bottles.  I also like that you can feed camels - because where else can you do that?!?  They also have an awesome biergarten where you can even same some Anheuser Busch products!  Their deer park is awesome too they take you on a "train" and you can see animals up close.  The cool (or frustrating park depending how you look at it) is you see different animals nearly every time.  Oh, and you can see the famous Clydesdales!!
   
 
4. City Museum: City Museum is just one of those places you have to see to really understand.  It's amazing - every where you look there something and they are continuously building new stuff.  This is fun for adults and kids alike... however probably not best for small kids.  You will probably have even more fun than I did recently if you're gutsy enough to climb in tunnels... I always have a weird fear of getting stuck.  There are a lot of add-on things you can do while here and honestly I haven't done many of them.  The City Museum is just truly amazing and giant work of art that you you play on... it's really just incredible.  I know I haven't said much in this post about what it actually is.  You just need to go there any experience it for yourself... trust me, you won't be disappointed!
   
 
5. Magic House: I have not been to the Magic House in years... it's really aimed at children and since I don't really have any children to go with, I haven't been.  That being said, I know it's a great place to visit especially if you do have those aforementioned kids!!  It's grown substantially since I last walked through it's doors and I really want to see what's in there.  It tends to rank high on lists of best places to visit.  I still have fond memories of going there - like the big slide down from the third floor or the electro-static ball that makes your hair stand up or the room where you jump around with the colors - not even sure if those things are still there, but if they are not just know even better stuff replaced them.
   

 

That concludes my list of five places you should visit in St. Louis... nothing is probably that surprising on the list... maybe I should do another entry with five more places that may be different than lists already out there.  Is there anything you think should outrank some of these... I could have replace Brewery Tour for Magic House to hit the adult crowd :)

 

Weekend in Review: Omaha Part 2

On Sunday we woke up and ate breakfast at our hotel (great selection... I love breakfast food!) then we headed over to the zoo.

We got there right as it was opening.  The Omaha zoo does charge admission but you do not have to pay for parking.

We first went to the Desert Dome which also houses the Creatures of the Night area in the basement.

Wallaby

Hogs - how cute are they sitting all together like that?

This cat was right above the hogs above... wonder how that makes this guy feel?

Bobcat

Aardvark - doesn't look much like Arther huh?

Beave - totally not a good picture, but the beaver area was REALLY cool they were swimming around and building a dam - so neat!



White alligator

Some other interesting things of note in the Nocturnal house - bats and really cool croc exhibit where one looked me square in the eyes - so neat!

Next we went over to see the Orangatans - one of Lindsey's favorites.

These apes were in the same area as the male orangatans - it was so cool - this one swung over to me when I was in the bubble and just stared at me

Not the greatest picture but one of the male orangatans - Lindsey taught me about the face plates - not all of the males get these and usually show who is the dominate male.  This guy was pretty crazy looking.  There was one other male - but mostly they hid.

 

The females were getting fed so there was quite a lot of activity in their area

Yep, that's pee

Next we headed over to the gorillas - I think we walked in just as they were let out in the exhibits.



Can you believe these big guys don't eat meat?

Here's the dominant male - he 'showed' haha

They also had female gorillas (not nearly as many of them in zoos... for instance the St. Louis Zoo doesn't have any)
 



Here's their 'baby' - four years old - you can also see mom in the background

It was really fun listening to Lindsey talk about the apes - I learned a bunch from her.  It's funny listening to her listening to visitors - like when they call these monkeys haha.  I mean I didn't know this until she worked in at the Zoo this summer - but monkeys have tails, apes do not.  She's really becoming very knowledgable!!

We first got a small snack ($8 bucks for a small pretzel and cheese and medium diet coke...) Then we saw the bears...
 



Look they have a polar bear!

Next we waited for the tram - while we were waiting we saw the large amount of peacocks they have at the zoo (seriously so many)



I took this one to show the babies

We rode the tram and saw some of the hooved animals... I should have taken a picture of the awesome giraffes, but didn't... we also saw the rhinos.  This is where we also went through the madagascar house (ring tailed lemars!) and saw the pathetic sea lion area (hey the one in St. Louis is pretty awesome now-a-days)



We then hopped back on the tram and saw the big cats - In the mean time we actually got to see these apes hooting and hollering - it was soo soo neat - I don't know how to get my video posted here, but maybe I'll figure it out soon for another post



Here's how close you can get to the cats - sadly they don't have the best cages...



A beautiful tiger - Dan wants one for Daddy to play with... pretty sure this tiger would eat Daddy pretty quickly

A white tiger - Dan says they are not that good b/c they are inbreed a lot... all the cats were pacing their cages.  Lindsey suspects it was feeding time although we didn't get to see that.

A beautiful male lion

Finally we looked at their aquarium.  This is where their penguin exhibit is.  We actually got to see feeding time there.  They also had this neat tunnel with sharks swimming over you... but it was annoying since there were like a million kids in it.  Kids at the zoo can be super annoying to non-kid-having-people.  I mean seriously don't let your kid bang on the window - that's not nice to the animals...
 

The jelly fish were the best part



Such weird creatures, but so pretty to look at

Needless to say we were pretty tired after all things zoo - we did see most of the zoo the things I know we missed were insects and jungle... but overall a lot of neat stuff!  It's a really cool zoo and if you are in the Omaha area I highly recommend going!

We finished off the day by going to dinner at Upstream Brewery. We started off with Hot Artichoke and Asiago Cheese Dip - which was awesome!!  I had their BBQ Chicken pizza which was good.  We finished off with Butterfinger Cheesecake and Caramel Apple Crisp - so good.

We headed back to the hotel and were done for the night.  We headed back to St. Louis on Monday.  Overall it was a great trip and had a great time hanging out with my mom and sister!!