Day 4: National Mall & Monuments

April 12, 2022

The night ends at 4:30 again. However, I keep nodding off until 6 o'clock, but I can't find any sleep. Damn jet lag.

At 8 o'clock, we have breakfast in the apartment with cereal, cornflakes, bread, and hazelnut cream. We also have grapes and apples. It tastes better than breakfast at the hotel 🙈😅

At 9:30, we start walking towards the Jefferson Memorial, which we reach after a few minutes. On the way there, you have a nice view of the Washington Monument from the lake.

We continue to the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, Korean War Memorial, and then up the stairs to the Lincoln Memorial.

It is quite crowded here, but the view over the (unfortunately empty) Reflection Pool is amazing. You can see all the way to the Capitol. Plus, the huge Abraham Lincoln is impressive.

In front of the memorial, the mounted police are lined up and willingly pose for photos. You can even pet the horses.

We pass the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and head to the World War 2 Memorial.

It's now 12:15, and the husband has rushed us here for no reason. We actually got tickets for the Washington Monument at 1:30.

By the way, a little tip for families: as the tickets for the monument are only available through recreation.gov, and they are all booked within 30 seconds of the reservation window opening (this is what happened to me, and I was extremely frustrated), there is another option called the 'Large Group Ticket'. It is supposed to be for large groups, but it doesn't define what a large group is. There were still plenty of tickets available to book, so I just tried it, and it worked perfectly 😅😇

Suddenly, it starts to get windy on top of the monument. Strong gusts of wind sweep through here, so we sit directly at the monument in the wind shadow. Also, it is getting cloudy, and thick clouds are now hanging over us. Great 🙄

But we still have an hour, so we munch on some cookies, take funny selfies against the dark sky, and wait.

The White House can be seen in the distance.

At 1:15, we are seated on the benches in front of the monument and divided into small groups. Conveniently, now all the clouds have cleared again, and the sun is shining again! Yay!

Just like at the airport, we now go through security (and it won't be the last one on this vacation). Backpack, cellphone, belt, sunglasses, watch, etc. have to go through the "scanning device" on the conveyor belt. Fortunately, this time, no one has anything to complain about with my stuff. Through a thick steel door, we go to the elevator and then up to the monument. By the way, we are among the few tourists wearing masks. There is no longer a mask requirement here.

The view from up here is amazing! Definitely a highlight!!!

Overall, we are on the go for about an hour until we leave the monument and the small museum inside towards the Capitol and food trucks - we are quite hungry now!

The street is lined with food trucks. We opt for a Mexican food truck because they also have a small selection of vegetarian dishes.

We sit on a nearby bench in the shade and eat vegetable quesadillas and tacos.

We make a short detour to the Smithonian Museum of Natural History to make sure we don't need time tickets here.

The museum is crowded - no tickets are needed - everything is "for free". Since we're already here, we're just looking for the restroom and then quickly leave the museum again. With this beautiful weather, we prefer to stay outside.

We look for shade and walk through the streets towards the White House.

I've been regretting since this morning that I didn't wear shorts. The temperatures climbed to almost 30 degrees throughout the day. Madness!! It's already mid-summer here...

Unfortunately, the White House is heavily barricaded, and we can only go as far as the bottom fence with the security. The White House can only be seen from a distance. Too bad.

The view from the monument was much better.

In my opinion, you can skip the way here!

Our feet are starting to hurt, we're sweating, and the kids are not really in the mood to walk around anymore. So we decide to walk back to the apartment.

Unfortunately, time tickets are required for the Holocaust Museum. Otherwise, we would have made a spontaneous visit on the way back, but it's not a big deal.

So, off to the apartment, shower, change clothes, and treat the severe sunburn on our arms, neck, and shoulders!

Oh well, we all got badly burned! Despite using SPF 50 sunscreen!!!

While the kids relax in the apartment, the husband and I take advantage of the "Happy Hour" at the restaurant The Grill, right across from our apartment.

Here, I treat myself to a huge cocktail called "Grill Punch," and the husband has a beer. Nice here 😜🍹🍺

Afterwards, the husband gets a crab soup as an appetizer at the fish market. Tonight, we're having pasta with tomato sauce in the apartment.