On the road: Washington, DC

After Boston, Peter and I returned to CT once more to spend another fun night at my friend Christy's place on our way down to Washington, DC. The weather had become quite cold and snowy, but we made it down to the nation's capitol by nightfall and checked into the youth hostel we'd booked.

Although the hostel was in a somewhat sketchy part of town, it was only $10 per person per night and we were able to share a sort of loft bunk that made it feel a little more comfortable and safe.

In the morning, we took on the daunting task of figuring out the DC bus system, and, after getting off at a wrong stop and trying to find more change for the bus at a strange raw vegan cafe, we eventually made it to the metro station and rode the train the rest of the way to the National Zoo.

We soon found, however, that because of the bitter cold temperatures that day, the zoo brought most of the animals in off the exhibits so we spent the majority of the day peering into empty enclosures looking for animals that weren't actually there.

Some of the more cold-tolerant animals were left out however, such as the red pandas and big cats.

One of the more interesting events at the zoo was the octopus feeding. Unfortunately, this octopus happened to be on her last legs (or should I say, tentacles?), as she had recently laid eggs and reached the end of her lifespan. Nonetheless, she got pretty perky for some prawns and was rather photogenic for the occasion.

As we began making our way out of the zoo with the setting of the sun, we heard a great uproar from the lion enclosure. Turned out they were having a little disagreement and I got it on camera!

The next day, we repeated our bus and metro route a little more smoothly and made it to the National Mall by early afternoon to explore the Smithsonian. After a stop by the National Monument, we ended up spending the entire day in the Air and Space Museum. It was super fun, but I really wish we'd had more time to see the rest of the museums.

Unfortunately, we had to get to North Carolina by the next day to meet one of Peter's friends, so our day ended with the closing of the museum and a long ride back to the hostel on the public transit. One thing was for sure though -- we both want to come back to DC to explore the rest of the museums sometime!

Beautiful sunset behind the National Monument