NoVA Day 2

Thursday was travel. Friday was travel, then a few things later in the afternoon / evening in NoVA. I’m calling this day 2, but I suppose it was really just the first whole day in NoVA.

We woke up at Abby’s, she made breakfast of bacon, eggs, and crumpets. Then, it was time to be off. First up, we went to the National Zoo.

It seemed that for the most part, the animals there were a bit more social than what we’re used to. They were out in plain view for the most part, so that was cool.

Above, we have pandas, a big gorilla and baby gorilla, a lion “spraying”, and the little rodent…

The zoo was also free admission, but was another attraction that I would have paid to see.

After the zoo, we headed to get some food … … …

That’s Ethiopian food. Yeah. They got me to eat Ethiopian food. I’ll say… it’s not horrible. The spices used reminded me of Indian / Middle-Eastern food … but everything was prepared as one form of stew or another. The picture you see is food for the 4 of us. All on one plate, and all of the food is on top a piece of the “bread”. I say “bread” because the “bread” is what seems to be a cross between a crepe, and a wetsuit. The texture is very very interesting. Like I said, all in all, it’s not horrible… but I don’t think I’ll be running out to get it again anytime soon. However, if I’m with a group of people, and thy all want to go get Ethiopian food, I know I don’t have to be too scared about it.

After lunch, we went to a nice coffee place for a bit of dessert and coffee, tea, Tom Collins, etc. Then, we were off again to head towards the Lincoln Memorial / Mall area.

After feeding the meter, we were off to see the sights.

First up, we visited Einstein. That guy was cool, but he hardly would pay attention to anything except his book. If you look at the ground in front of the statue, you’ll see some markings. If you stood in the center of the circle, and looked at Einstein, when you talked you could hear an echo. Pretty interesting.

From Einstein, it was off to visit with Lincoln. He also didn’t have much to say, but looking at the guy, I think we human-folk are shrinking as we evolve. That guy was HUGE!

It was a bit overcast, which made for interesting contrast-y pictures, but it also seemed to keep the crowds down a bit. From the Lincoln Memorial, we made our way around the area with stops at the Korean War Memorial:

and the FDR memorial:

After the FDR memorial, we walked down towards the Jefferson Memorial (Take THAT Texas!! Jefferson still totally matters!!!) but at this point, it had started to rain so the picture taking stopped.

The evening consisted of going to “Scion” which is a restaurant in the Dupont Circle area that is owned by one of Virginia’s Sorority  sisters. We met up with Allie at this point, and a friend of hers from grad school who was in town for a conference. If you’re going to be in the area, I’d highly recommend Scion. The place makes the BEST Mac and Cheese with crumbled prosciutto on top. The stuff was so amazingly creamy and wonderful … I really can’t describe it in any other way than it seemed like after they made the best mac and cheese in the world, they put it into the serving dish, then poured a pint of heavy cream over it, added shredded cheese on top of that, some prosciutto, and finished it off in the oven, turning the heavy cream into gooey wonderful creaminess.