Day 3 - African American History Museum

Today the jet lag was a little better. I woke up about 4am again, but managed to get back to sleep and my alarm woke me at 7am.

I had planned to go for a run early as Washington is really good for running as I found out on our last visit. It was already quite warm, around 22 degrees Celsius. I ran up to the Capitol building and around it, before coming back. This took about half an hour, but was enough to get me dripping in sweat! The pavements are nice and I was treated to seeing the rising sun illuminating the Capitol building with virtually no tourists yet.

Capitol building in the early morning sunlight

View down to the Washington memorial

When I got back, we got ready and then headed out about 9am for some breakfast. We needed to be organized as we had a 10:15am pass for the African American Smythsonian museum. We had tried to visit last time, but it was the 1 year anniversary since it opened and there were quite long queues to get in.

Outside Union Station waiting for bus

We walked back to the station to get some for breakfast, and then picked up what is called the “circulator” bus which one of the routes runs up and down The Mall. It’s only $1 per fare which is pretty good. We also got really lucky as the bus driver was acting as a tour guide by shouting out all the buildings and saying some extra information every now and again.

Circulator bus

We got to the museum and had a short wait in the sun before the doors opened and we were ushered in. It was quite cold and dark in the lobby and we quickly grabbed a map and heading up to the Culture section on the top floor. We spent about an hour there looking around the various music, film and art . The next floor down was Community which was filled with sporting, political and education related exhibits. We then skipped to the basement which had the historical section which was very interesting.

African American History Museum exterior

Waiting to enter the museum

View of Washington monument from inside the museum

Finally, we took at look at an art installation which was called the Contemplative Court. It was primarily a water fountain which was falling from the ceiling. The spectacle and the sound of water echoing off the walls was striking.

Contemplative Court

After we finished, we headed back out into the heat. By a total coincidence, after we left we spotted a gathering of people on the other side of the road by the Washington monument. It turned out to be the ice hockey team in Washington, the Capitals, who won the NHL championship last season (2017-18). They had taken the Stanley Cup which is the trophy on a photoshoot to the monument. Strangely I did know this and had tried to see whether it was on display in the city a few days earlier. I couldn't miss the opportunity to get a photo with the cup!

Washington memorial

We decided to ride to bus all the way around The Mall and back to Union Station and get lunch there. Surprisingly we had to wait a little while for a bus that was supposed to be every 10 minutes. It would have been ok but we were standing directly in the sun with no shelter so it felt a little uncomfortable. We had a nice ride around the various memorials before we made it back to the station.

We picked up some lunch, did a bit of shopping in the mall at the station and then came back. We were hoping to go back to a restaurant for dinner that we went to on our honeymoon and last year called MXDC. However, Kathryn noticed there were no reservations online and when she called they were doing a private function this evening.

So in the end, we went to another restaurant we went to previously which was the Old Ebbitt Grill. It’s quite famous a I think, and has a very traditional interior with wood paneling and soft furnishing.

We again opted for the bus, although this time we caught it straight away and it was a quick journey to downtown.

Interior of Old Ebbitt Grill

Once we got into the restaurant, despite a bit of a queue we were actually seated immediately. We had a really nice waiter, and although we just had calamari for start and pasta dishes for our mains, the food was really good. The service actually surprised us a bit and although we sat down at 5pm, we were finished by 6pm.

Afterward we had a quick visit to the front of the White House to get the obligatory tourist photo and then headed back to the hotel.