Washington DC – museum tour!

After the Saturday AM guided White House tour, we met up with one last mom who came in just for the day and made our way on the metro to the Mall and museums. We split up into two groups and my group made our way to the Natural History Museum to see the Hope Diamond. Because no matter what a Diamond is a girls best friend and I will *always* sign up to see sparkly things 🙂

Again, me with no camera instincts until a little later so here:

It didn’t actually look this blue on the pedestal though you could see shimmers of blue. Oh, and diamonds also bring out the worst in girls! The Hope was on a pedestal  that rotated in it’s display case. Given the FREE museums and some cold/rainy weather and it being a Saturday, the museum was pretty packed and the gem rooms were particularly so. When we got to the Hope, the display was surrounded by people on all four sides. No clear line up of any kind. So we approached one side and waited expecting the women who were at the front to move on after the diamond had made a complete rotation (that was our plan at any rate). One rotation. Two rotations? No movement. I moved behind one of them to right to get a better view and to see if a spot would open up on another side and I brushed against the back of one of their purses. She turns around and snaps at Florida mom who was next to me “Do you have a PROBLEM?!” Whoa lady. Fla mom and I apologize and then she points out that they had been there for more than one rotation and that there was a crowd building up behind them and perhaps they should let others have their turn – think she also said something about me coming from a long way to see the diamond and such. Oh boy were they not happy to hear that. They snapped back some more, but they did move at least.

After avoiding a Brawl in the Museum where they set Night in the Museum, we moved on towards a native American etching exhibit. On the way we passed this room and I actually DID take out my camera:

As we walked out of the Nat History museum we saw this building – the original Smithsonian, also known as The Castle:

We could also see the Capitol peaking out from the top of some fall colored tree tops:

On to my favorite thing to see – Impressionists Paintings at the Natl Art Gallery. Specifically, Renoir & Van Gogh:

I was VERY happy with the museum setting on my camera! After our art gallery tour we were SPENT so a few of us grabbed a cab to take us directly to the restaurant for dinner where we could sit and have some cocktails while waiting for the rest of the group to re-join us there. Oh, those were some mighty tasty drinks!! Oh, the restaurant was Zaytinia and while we were there we saw the Presidential motorcade go by. Pretty cool! Saw the Cadillac on Steroids and the typical Suburban escorts front and back. We did know the President would be moving around the city that evening since he was talking at the Human Rights Campaign dinner. Oh, speaking of dinner – wowza. It’s a tapas style Asian/Greek/Turkish cuisine and I had the BEST tabouli and then I remembered to take out my camera for my other two dishes:

We took our group photo there after dinner which I will post separately after I play with it a little. Don’t want it buried at the end of such a long post! This was one fabulous night of food and drink at this restaurant and I highly recommend it if you are in DC.