Did you miss me, part deux


This time a wedding brought me to Washington DC...which is a town you can spend a lot of time in and still not see everything.

I wish I understood airline upgrade procedures. I bought my ticket to DC weeks and weeks ago. And requested to use miles to upgrade both myself and my S.O. to First Class. I have over 100K miles sitting in my account, where they've been sitting accruing for quite some time. Somehow they could confirm the upgrade for the west-to-east trip within a couple days of booking, but never could confirm the other direction. And I really don't know why. I assume they prioritize higher-level customers over me for the upgrade, but why were they so quick to upgrade in one direction then?

Anyway, flying First Class really does make a difference. But flying first class did not mean they actually had my vegetarian meal on board. (United is about as bad at that as can possibly be.) Luckily the meat for the salad was packed separately, so they could give me the rather substantial salad on its own for my entree.

We stayed at a Kimpton hotel, the Hotel Madera. The rooms are truly huge for a hotel. Especially after my stay at the petite On the Avenue in NY, I appreciated having a little room to breathe. The one size exception was the bathroom, which was a tiny, cramped stall. The main attraction for any traveler, though, is the staff. Without exception every staff person at the Hotel Madera was friendly, proactive, accommodating. Really noticeably excellent. There are a couple of things I would improve about the Hotel. Notably, room service. They don't offer a hot breakfast and their dinner service is done by 10:30PM. Given a choice I want room service all day every day.

Washington DC is a town with lots to see. We spent this trip doing mostly Smithsonian Museum stuff. That alone is enough to fill several vacations.

We checked out the museum of Natural History:



We also checked out the Air & Space Museum at the end of the same day, which obviously meant that my arms were too tired to lift the camera, since I didn't take a single picture :(

Just like my trip to NYC last month I really lucked out on weather, catching what are, I'm sure, the last days of Autumn. These outdoor pictures on the mall should highlight the crisp, clear, sunny weather we got:





Since I was there for a wedding, I'm going to include one picture of the bride and groom (my cousin.) Since they both work in government this picture on this blog will likely re-surface in the future and keep them from being able to run for public office:



The day after the wedding we went to the Smithsonian Museum of American History. This museum seems like it could use a little refresh to be honest. Some of the sections seem neglected and pathetic. I did, however, really enjoy the American Presidency exhibit. Having just finished Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation (review still to come) I spent a bit of time in the assassination section.

The S.O.'s favorite part, of course, was the somewhat curtailed information technology exhibit. There he found the reason for our journey to the museum: his friend's original Apple computer on display:


Restaurants:

We went to two pretty good restaurants while in DC, both in the Dupont Circle area:

The first was Pesce, on 21st Street, no surprise, a seafood restaurant. They did however make me an excellent vegetarian risotto, so I had nothing to complain about. I think the general consensus of my sibilngs was that the appetizers, mussels, oysters etc, were good, and the entrees so-so. So it seems like a good place to go have a glass of wine and some finger foods.

Further down 21st Street is perhaps the only restaurant in DC with singing waiters, Mimi's American Cafe. There I discovered that everyone, even in DC, wants to be a star!

On our last day we also went to one fun bookstore/cafe right off the Circle, Kramer Books and the Afterwords Cafe.

Finally, what trip would be compete without a geek meal. This time it was not a geek meal composed of my blogging geek types, but rather my S.O.'s MacGeek-types. In appropriate geek fashion we went to a hole-in-the-wall Afghani restaurant, and then topped it off with a trip to a "frozen custard" joint. (Which pretty much seemed like soft serve ice cream to me, but I'm clearly a philistine.) Who knew there were so many geeks that could converge in one place in the DC Metro area with just a couple of hours notice?



We did not get the first class upgrade coming home, which was one long 6-hour flight. And I've pretty much established a new and unwelcome pattern of getting sick subsequent to any plane travel. So, I'm here with a silly cough and foggy head...which is why it's taking me a while to get back into my bloggy rhythm.

No more travel for a while. Gotta let my immune system recover from all those germy people you meet out in the rest of the world!

Posted: Fri - November 18, 2005 at 08:00 AM       EmailFeedback

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