Ready for a non-boring vacation recap? Well, you may have to look elsewhere.

The reality of Real Life is that by the time you get a chance to get away for a long weekend, you’re so tired that all you want to do is sleep. That is exactly what James and I did for about 20 of our first 36 hours in DC. We spent another 8 hours laying in bed, exhausted, watching TV. And whatever change is left over constitute “Day 1 & 2″.

But the point of vacation is to catch up on rest, so I don’t feel bad that that’s what we accomplished.

Now, a couple rookie mistakes we made.

1. We assumed that since we are NYCers, we would just walk everywhere. Stop laughing at me. It seemed plausible, once we realized that the maps weren’t to proportion and that DC looked smaller than NYC. So we took the train into the city center, and then we walked. For miles and miles and miles and miles. And DC isn’t really anything but wide, so we would walk up and down and back and forth and miles and miles and miles. My hips still haven’t forgiven me.

2. Check your shoes before you pack. One of my sneakers had an annoying, hard, painful little thingie sticking out on the inside, which make my only comfortable cute pair of shoes un-wearable. Needless to say, this was devastating, and you can tell by the running shoes I got stuck wearing that my feet felt less than fabulous.

3. Don’t drink the tap water. Maybe it was because we were exhausted. Maybe it was because I started out severely dehydrated. Maybe it was because it wasn’t until AFTER I had downed half a gallon of it that I realized the bathwater in the jacuzzi tub was a really pretty color blue… Part of the exhaustion James and I felt was due to a stomach-something-or-other, which I do believe came from the blue tap water wreaking havoc on our delicate interiors. The up-side is that he let me get a couple bottles of fancy water at CVS, because I was so wretched-feeling and because he is a merciful, loving man who likes to see me smile more than he likes to see me suffer {but only just by a little}.

4. What do you mean things close here? We didn’t bother to do much research coughJamescough because we wanted the weekend to be relaxed and carefree. … Do you know how stressful it is when you get to a city and find that all the fun attractions close at 2pm on Fridays? V.E.R.Y. If you’re traveling to anywhere but New York {where most things are open until all hours of the night, except the Met} hit their websites {listed at the end of this post, for DC} and just peruse tour-times and hours of operation. We also went Veterans’ Day Weekend, so things were more askew than normal. But we missed a couple things we really wanted to see because we didn’t plan ahead properly. {Which means we have to go back, and you bet your buns I’m calling Nicole from NicheWhite before we head out to make sure she can come drink with me! participate in all my responsible life-choice-making.}

5. There is no shopping at The National Mall. And you can imagine how hard that was on James after he promised me a J. Crew. FYI- the only J. Crew to be found is all the way over in Georgetown. LOFTs aplenty, though.

We saw everything: the monuments, the museums, the archives, the joggers. We missed the last tour at the Mint by 30 minutes and James was devastated. We were forced to go through metal detectors every 20 feet and by the end of day 1 I had given up on trying to wear a belt.

But we walked and talked and generally remembered all the reasons we thought one another were so neat in the first place. And he took me out for really great Italian food, which was my second favorite part of the vacation.

Please excuse any low-resolution or grainy images. We used three different point and shoot cameras because I refused to lug a 10lbs DSLR with me when I was focusing on rest.

The Natural History Museum was a really fun time. We ran around like little kids who skipped class and found a nerdy candy store to loot.

Straight to the punchline, James got to make a picture of himself as a Neandrothal. I told him it looks just like he looks when he neglects to shave for a week. … At least I got a good laugh out of that one.

The hands-down best part of Vacation was The Live Butterfly Exhibit in the Natural History Museum. Amazing. We walked in and it was 81 degrees and there were thousands of butterflies just floating gracefully through the air.

I made the comically ill-informed choice to wear perfume that day, so more were fluttering around me than I was comfortable with. {I am from the country. If a bug gets too close to you, you squash it.} One even got up close and really personal with my forehead.

James and I also hit up the Crime & Punishment museum, where we went from Rogue Outlaws to Prisoners of the State and back again, several times over. It was a really fun way to learn about the history of crime in the US and at the end they had a shooting simulation game. You’re not supposed to shoot until they shoot at you, but the drug dealer in front of me reached down and as soon as I saw him grab his weapon, I sent him to chat his choices over with Sweet Baby Jesus. Then I killed the other drug dealer, because I am apparently a video-simulation-assassin-ninja.

Then, of course, the guy who started us in the simulation went to lunch and the teenager who replaced him erased our scores. There was much debate over whether the kill-shot on the screen had been mine or James’, but I think we all know I’m more the shoot-to-kill type in this relationship.

And we went to The Aquarium, which was great but not as great as the one in Baltimore, which is greater than any great underwater adventure I’ve had, aside from Discovery Cove {in Orlando} and its giant underwater diving pool with real live manta rays {my favorite animal}.

But the coolest part of the Aquarium, for me, was seeing a real, living Chambered Nautilus. I have a certain attachment to the creature because of my Kappa Delta roots, and it was beautiful and a little terrifying and completely magical and extraordinary– just like the journey through life that its shell so often represents.

James and I never take photos of ourselves, only of each other. We did manage to get a couple nice shots, though. The top one is courtesy of a very nice lady from Texas who insisted we get our photo taken together. She didn’t steal our camera, like I half-suspected she intended to do, so that was nice. And the White House is in the background. {Squint. It’s there. I promise.}

My future husband is awful good-lookin’. I offer proof {That second photo is his angry face. Word to the wise, don’t step into moving traffic, even accidentally, unless you want to see that face.}:

And he took several photos of me. Mostly there were photos of me looking half-alien with one eye open and one eye closed and both were looking in different directions. Also, my fangs were out and my monster skin turned green. So they’re not posted here.

If you ever head to DC, please feel free to use the links at the bottom to orchestrate your trip.

-MM.

{Lincoln Memorial}

{Washington Monument}

{Holocaust Museum}

{Museum of Natural History, DC}

{The Smithsonian Museums}

{The National Aquarium}

{Bureau of Engraving and Printing – The Mint}

{Otello’s – Delicious Italian Food}