Last month, J and I flew down to Washington DC to visit a few friends. It had been just over four years since our last visit and it was just as great as the first time. You can read the recap of our first visit on THIS post. This time around our trip was only 48 hours so we crammed in everything we could. Seeing as we had already seen the touristy things last time, we instead focused our efforts on drink, food, shopping, and a show.
SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM FOR A RECAP OF THE RECOMMENDATIONS.
Unlike the prior visit, we opted to fly in this time to maximize our time. From Logan Airport to Washington Reagan was only an hour and a half. The actual time in the air was only about 50 minutes. It was literally the quickest flight I’d ever been on in my life. From the airport it was a 12 minute uber ride to the hotel in Downtown DC.
The hotel in Georgetown from our previous visit had since closed so we opted to stay at the Capital Hilton as it was right in the middle of everything we needed to do. The street outside the hotel gave a view to the White House which was also pretty cool as it was the one thing we didn’t get to see last time. Funny enough..neither of us knew how close we were so we didn’t actually believe it was the White House until we used Google Maps. And to be fair… there are a LOT of white buildings in DC, all around the same height.
ANYWHO, we arrived on Friday at noon and the hotel had the availability to let us check in early. After dropping our bags off in our room (and making a quick shoe change), we took off to find lunch. We did run into a few issues with places being closed despite their websites saying they were open which has been common since the start of the pandemic. Since our hotel was in the middle of everything, it was only a few blocks down that we ran into McCormick & Schmick to catch their lunch menu.
After that, J wanted a long sleeve t-shirt so decided to walk around for some shopping, hitting a Nordstrom Rack and an H&M that were only a few blocks away before returning to the hotel to relax for a bit.
Later that evening, I met up with a coworker who took me on a haunted pub crawl around the city. She’d done the cutest thing by setting up a map and a pamphlet of all the pubs and their ghost stories. If you don’t have a friend as thoughtful as mine, you could always take a paid tour via Nightly Spirits or other promotions in the city.
Without spoiling the ghost stories, the stops on our tour were:
- Old Ebbitt Grill (amazing mussels)
- The Willard Hotel, Round Robin Bar (the best Mint Julep)
- Lafayette Square / The White House
- The Dolly Madison House
- The Decatur House
- The Hay-Adams, Off The Record Bar (known for its Caricature artwork)
Each stop had a long standing history in the city and are definitely a must see if you’re going through town.
While I was out, J met up with his friends for dinner and drinks at Stan’s DC before we all closed out the night at the St. Regis Bar which was a much higher end bar than the ones we’d just visited. I’d totally recommend the St. Regis if you wanted a dolled up date night but on this occasion we were totally underdressed.
On Satuday, we started around noon after a much needed coffee from the Starbucks one block over from our hotel. I wanted to spend the day in Georgetown, like we did on our first trip, for some good food and shopping. Georgetown just has such a good vibe and a young crowd. Our first stop was Tapas at Bodega Spanish Tapas & Lounge. Again AMAZING Mussels. These might actually be my new favorite thing.
After lunch we walked around. The weather was gorgeous so the streets were packed full with people. We walked into Aritzia, the largest Anthropology store I’d ever been in, and then Sephora before taking another break to have some Macarons at Laudree. They stated that the seating area was usually by reservation but they had some open availability so we took a seat for some fancy hot cocoa and sweets.
Soon after, we headed back to the hotel for a quick change before making our way to Iron Age Korean Steakhouse in Columbia Heights for Korean BBQ. We don’t have a ton of Korean BBQ options in Boston so it was the one thing I HAD to have while down in DC.
Like I said, we did a TON of eating but we were doing roughly 10k steps per day.
We ended up at the Warner Theatre for Andrew Schutlz’ Infamous tour. Having bought tickets months in advance, it was the catalyst for our whole DC revisit to start off with. The Boston show but it’s on New Year’s Eve and that’s a no for me. You had to show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test to be allowed into the theatre so the lines were fairly long but moved quickly. The show was hilarious and the venue was absolutely beautiful. My camera roll is currently full of chandelier photos because I couldn’t stop staring at them inside the theatre.
To wrap up our trip, we closed out the night at The Statler Bar inside our hotel. We wanted to hang out with everyone a little longer before we said our goodbyes.
Sunday, we had a 10am flight back to Boston so we didn’t have time for anything else. I’m not sure we could’ve handled anything more. When we got home we were COMPLETELY exhausted. I had a hard time keeping my eyes open at work the next day but the trip was well worth it. At least we can say we took advantage of every hour we had available.
RECAP
Hotel Stays:
Food & Drink:
- McCormick & Schmick
- Old Ebbitt Grill
- Round Robin Bar
- Off The Record Bar
- Stan’s DC
- St. Regis Bar
- Bodega Spanish Tapas & Lounge
- Laudree
- Iron Age Korean Steakhouse
- The Statler Bar
Activities:
- Pub Crawl around DC’s Historic Sites
- Go shopping in Georgetown
- Check out a Show at the Warner Theatre
- Stuff your face!
What I Wore
