Washington D.C. - March 2016

In September 2015, Vonage acquired iCore which is located in McLean, VA. iCore's business is the same principle as what the Vonage business does in Phoenix, so I have made a couple of trips to Northern VA in the last few months. On my March trip, I decided to fly out a day early to take advantage of spending a day in Washington, D.C. since I have never been before.

I flew in on Saturday night, March 19th, and arrived at DCA around 7pm. I took a cab to my hotel, and as I was driving I realized I wasn't going to be walking anywhere from my hotel. I had assumed D.C. was a lot like NYC in that people would be out and I could venture out and find something for dinner. I decided to get an Uber and I had put in the destination as The National Mall (also thinking that there would be people walking around the monuments). We arrived there, and it was pitch black so my driver was nice enough to drive me to Verizon Center (where the Wizards play) and fortunately there was a lot of activity around that area. As I was walking around, I saw a restaurant called Matchbox - I had heard the flight attendant talking about this restaurant on the plane so decided to give it a try. I just sat at the bar and ordered a pizza - it was good and a place I would visit again.

Chinatown

After dinner, I found a place called Red Velvet. Got a cupcake and then got an Uber back to my hotel (it was a cold night and raining as well).

Saturday morning I slept in a little but was still out of my apartment a little after 9. I forgot that was still super early on a weekend in a city.

I had breakfast at the Protein Bar - a little breakfast and lunch place I found online. This was a peanut butter oatmeal.

I then got a coffee at this coffee shop - in the window it says "Proudly Independent & Locally Owned" - my type of place.

From there I walked to the White House museum and spent a couple of hours in there. There was a lot of information and I didn't make it through it all. That is a place you could easily spend a half a day if you took the time to read everything.

I thought it was interesting that the White House used to have a lap pool.

Magnolia tree outside of the White House grounds.

Around early afternoon I met up with my friend Craig. He recently moved to the D.C. area. It was good to catch up and also have a tour guide. We spent most of the afternoon walking all the monuments.

I was there for the first day of the cherry blossom festival. Some of the blossoms were starting to bloom - 4 days later was considered the peak bloom.

After a while of walking around, we went to lunch at The Hamilton. I had a great salad, and it was also nice to warm up for a while.

After lunch we were going to walk around some more, however, it was cold outside and getting to be later in the afternoon so I decided to go back to my hotel and pick up my luggage and get an Uber out to McLean where I was staying for the rest of the week.

This was a good initial visit to D.C., but I for sure still have a lot to see and do there.