Washington DC

It was 11:45pm when our flight landed at BWI airport. We hustled to Avis rental and rented the car (Hyndai Sonata). Lady at the counter was very helpful and recommended nice and fuel efficient car to us given our plans to drive long distance. We headed to the Extended Stay America near BWI airport only to find out that night attendant was missing in action (MIA). Another guest was waiting for more than an hour. Called emergency customer service, but they couldn't reach the attendant either. Finally, after 30 mins, a guest showed up near the lobby and he opened the lobby door for us. The night attendant then showed up in few minutes after hearing the noise. To add fuel to the fire, the attendant was not courteous either. This messed up our next day plans to quite a bit. [Note: Filed a complaint about this incident on ESA website and they have sent "Be Our Guest" coupon valid for ONE free night stay. :-) Not bad.] We slept for less than 5 hours that night and got up early in the morning. Vidhya, my wife, got up even earlier and prepared lunch and dinner for us. We headed out to DC around 7:30am on July 09, 2009. It took little less than an hour to reach DC. We were few minutes late for Library of Congress tour (8:30am). So, we decided to skip that at that time. We went to Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) to collect tickets for evening (5:00pm) tour. We, then, parked our car near Stadium-Armory metro station and decided to use public transport. Parking was not expensive there and it had quite a lot of parking space. Metro was very convenient to cover top attractions in DC.

We reached US Capitol* around 10:15am and learned that absolutely no food and water is allowed inside the building. We didn't want to throw away the food, so Vidhya decided to stay outside (sacrifice). Kirti and I went inside only to find out that tours were suspended for unknown time. Bummer! We took some snaps inside and spent sometime watching the exhibits in the visitor hall. When we were about to head out, the tour resumed operation. We both took the tour and headed out when Kirti felt hungry. There was a restaurant inside the US Capitol, so I decided to buy her lunch there itself as I don't want to search for places outside and delay her lunch further. We were not allowed to take the food outside (what a weird restriction?). By the time I fed her and came out it was almost close to 3 hours. Vidhya was clueless, but had faith that we would return back. :-) Vidhya had stomach ache, so I asked her to have some fresh food in the restaurant inside. I had the prepared lunch outside the US Capitol.

We then headed to US Supreme Court for our 2pm tour*. We had a nice tour and lecture about the Supreme Court and US judicial system. We took some pictures inside and outside the Supreme Court, Capitol and Library of Congress. We had some spare time and decided to venture into Library of Congress. We had a quick self-guided tour of Library of Congress and headed to BEP. Before that, I ran to capture the Monument shots from Capitol building and other side of Capitol. That was worth the run!

We were few minutes early for our BEP tour*. No photography/videography was allowed inside the BEP. We bought uncut one dollar sheet as a souvenir. After that we took a stroll to Monument and White house. On the way, we saw US Treasury and Department of Homeland Security offices. We picked our car and went to see Pentagon. We couldn't really make out Pentagon from outside and told my wife that satellite view of Google maps would be much better. Then, we began our journey to New Jersey.

On the way, we visited Mohan and Kavitha family (Ten day trip to east coast) at their home in Delaware, whom we met during Art of Living course at Chicago. We had a delicious dinner prepared by Kavitha. Kirti had fun playing with Laasya, Chinnu and Chinnu's friend. At 11:30pm we started from their place and reached the hotel (Candlewood suites) at Secacus (NJ) around 1.30 in the morning. Boy, it was another hectic day for us.

Click on the hypertexts for guide to DC sites and album. (This guide is provided by the Office of Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren.)

[* Not to be missed. US Capitol tour is also good. If you are bored you can leave the tour after seeing the dome.]

Tips:

• Contact your Congress representative to request tours for White House, Capitol, Supreme Court, Pentagon, et al. About 1 to 6 month advance notice is required for White House tour and is subject to last minute cancellation.
• Metro is very convenient and highly recommended in DC. You don't have to hunt for parking and worry about the missing the tour time. I also heard that parking is quite easy to find in DC.
• While discussing with one of my colleague, she mentioned that Aerial view of Oval Garden in White House and Pentagon from Monument is good. So, plan for that. We thought it would be yet another high tower and skipped it. :-(
• You can easily spend 2 - 3 days in Washington DC. We skipped memorial, as it was getting late to head back to NJ.