Places visited:
Washington DC:
Canal Park
National Air and Space Museum
Potomac River
National Museum of Natural History
Whitehouse
National Zoo
Lincoln Memorial
Albert Einstein Memorial
Madame Tussauds
United States Botanic Garden
National Museum of American History
Smithsonian National Museum of African Art
Smithsonian Institution Building (Castle)
World War II Memorial
Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception
Date: 14/7/2018 to 22/7/2018
Persons: Harshal, Juilee, Radhika
I was going to DC (yeah, they don't call it Washington or Washington DC. They just call it DC) for my SANS training and planned Juilee and Radhika's journey as well along with me. I was too lazy to book a morning flight and I ended up booking my flight in the noon. As we were planning to save some money on flights, we ended up booking a different flight for Juilee and Radhika than mine. And hence eventually I had to wake up in the morning to drop them at the airport. Hahahaha.
14/7/2018:
Juilee and Radhika's flight was in the morning 6 AM. So on the previous day we slept very early and we woke up at 3 AM. By 4 AM, Utsav came to pick us up. I accompanied Juilee and Radhika till airport. I dropped them at the gate and returned back home to relax, as my flight was in the afternoon. Due to weather (storms) their Moline - Chicago flight got delayed and then they had to run a lot in 2 minutes to catch their next connecting flight from Chicago to DC. United Airlines usually books you on the next possible flight for free if the delays are due to weather, but fortunately Juilee was able to catch the next flight. As they reached DC, they checked into the hotel Holiday inn which is like 3 minutes drive from the airport and they have free airport shuttle as well.
I started my journey from Moline at 11 AM. My journey was uneventful (Except that I forgot to checkin my bag and took it till the security gate, and then I remembered it. So I had to turn back and check it in and go again to the security check). We prepared only 1 check in bag carefully because the check in bags are expensive (like $25 per bag). We packed MTR Upama, Pohe and other food stuff which helps us survive here. It helps for morning breakfasts. In USA people take very cold and sweet breakfast. I like hot and spicy breakfast and so I always carry MTR or any other brand cuppa pohe or cuppa upama. Carrying the "cappa" stuff is necessary as you will not always get microwave, so "cuppa" can be cooked by adding just the boiling water (which you can take from the coffee makers).
I reached to DC at around 6AM. DC is 1 hour ahead of Chicago/Moline timezone. Juilee and Radhika came to DCA with the hotel shuttle. The shuttle picked me up on the top (3rd) floor of DCA and then we reached hotel at around 6:30 PM.
We did our dinner at Taj Indian restaurant, where the servers were not understanding Hindi (yet they
were looking like Indians). The food was good. Then we took Uber to the Canal park. There are many fountains and you can go, walk, dance and get wet inside fountains. We did not take the towels and extra pairs of cloths, so we just enjoyed the view and promised Radhika to come back there later. In front of the park, there was a fun fair, but as we entered there, they started closing the booth. Then we started walking along side of the road to go to the Potomac river, but as Radhika got tired, we had return home.
15/7/2018:
We checked out in the morning and then check-in to the Marriot. The hotel is pretty nice and cozy, out of budget for middle class travellers. It was like 11 am so we thought of doing lunch and then start sight-seeing. We ate pizza in Pizze, which was just around the corner. It was a perfect pizza.
We then visited National Air and Space Museum. There are two such museums in this area. One is in the DC and the another one is in VA (it's name is STEVEN F. UDVAR-HAZY CENTER). We went into the DC branch (but I heard that VA branch is bigger then the DC branch). It was amazing experience. There were real planes and parts of rockets and space shuttles. Radhika enjoyed it for some time and then got bored due to all the technical things. The 3D movie tickets were sold out, so we spent some time in the cafe and there I booked the cruise tickets and then we came out of the museum. We hired a Cycleriksha and rode around 30 minutes enjoying the views of DC monuments and
he dropped us at Potomac riverboat (I suppose it was a hard task for him to carry three of us in the riksha and paddling that long). The cruise was nice. It started from the GeorgeTown station and because I booked a one-way trip so it dropped us at Alexandria City Marina. Radhika enjoyed the cruise.Then we had dinner at Mia Italian, which is in front of the station. There is a free bus trolley that goes around this small town Alexandria, but as we all were tired, we decided to return to hotel using Uber.
16/7/2018:
While I was at the training, Juilee and Radhika enjoyed in Butterfly Museum, Museum of Natural history, etc. In Butterfly Museum it is a big closed and temperature controlled, moist room, where
butterflies are flying freely. You can go in and the butterflies many a times land on you. You are not allowed to touch them as it causes their colors to go off. Radhika enjoyed it. I met Juilee and Radhika at Roti restaurant for lunch break. This was a Mediterranean restaurant. We tried Falafal. They served it with Green Chutni. (Yeah, they knew what Chutni is) This was the most amazing falafal I have ever eaten. Radhika was telling about what fun they had in the Butterfly Museum. It has a room which is closed and warm and humid. You can go inside the room and the butterflies might come and actually seat on you. The museum of Natural history was great but Radhika got bored in it. This museum has those famous statues of big elephant and dinosaur skeleton.
While listening to these fun moments, I was already late for the training. So I ran and took the cab back to the Marriott and Juilee took Radhika to Air and space museum to watch Panda 3D movie. As the training got over, Juilee and me coordinated to meet at whitehouse. I took taxi to the whitehouse. There are many Indian. African and Middle-Eastern Taxi drivers in here. As I got down at White-house, I met with Juilee and Radhika and we went to the location. Whitehouse is fenced and we could
get only a very long-shot. If you want to visit inside the house and take a tour, you either need to contact your USA senator or your contry's consulate. As we are not USA citizens, we had to contact Indian Consulate, which I did before our trip and got the reply that Indian Consulate does not (have time) take care of the security issues arising from the White-house visit so no Indian tourist can visit it.
There are protests going on in front of White-house 24 X 7 X 365. We saw a protest related to Immigrants and another about gay-pride. People were generally not happy with the Trump administration. We took some photos with protesters and they felt happy. Then we wandered around the fence for half an hour and then as Radhika was hungry, we headed to Pizze and had pizza and then came back to hotel and went to bed.
17/7/2018:
It was a rainy day and Juilee took Radhika for a zoo visit. The zoo was big and both of them were exhausted till lunch. So In my training's lunch break, we met to Rajaji for lunch. It was convenient as the zoo, my training and Rajaji were on the same street within 5 minutes walk from each other. After my training we went to visit Lincoln Memorial. It has a big statue of Mr Lincoln. After spending some time there, I came back for my training's evening sessions. Juilee and Radhika enjoyed a parade at the Memorial. While coming back I again met them at a Chipotle for dinner. It was busy day for me due to the extensive hands-on training.
18/7/2018: In the morning, Juilee took Radhika at Albert Einstein Memorial where there is a big statue of Einstein and children can climb on it and then if you can touch his nose then you become as intelligent as he was (that's what people say). We again met at Rajaji for lunch and then Juilee took the Metro to Madam Tussaud museum of wax. Radhika enjoyed the wax statues. They also bought a
wax hand for Radhika's hand-replica - a waxartist from the museum asked Radhika to dip her palm in a luke-warm melted wax and then create replica of Radhika's hand. Radhika got so happy to see the wax hand of her own.
My training for over early so Juilee and Radhika took me again to the Zoo to see Pandas. They have seen it already but as I wished to se
e those, they accompanied me again. It is really a huge zoo and you will need strollers or wheel-chairs if there are children or senior people in your group. After watching Pandas for some time, I went back for my evening training sessions and Juilee went to Mediterrana for dinner and packed some falafals for me as well which I ate in the room.
19/7/2018:
It was the last day of my training. Juilee and Radhika went to see the Botanical garden. The garden has lot of varieties of plants and also have some tree planting activities for kids. After they returned
from that garden, we met at Naan and beyond to have some Indian food. The food was good but the hotel space was small. After the lunch, Radhika and Juilee went to Smithsonian national museum of American history. They have a huge collection of objects from America's past. There is a small display unit of American kitchen appliances. My training got over early and I went to the metro station (WOODLEY PARK-ZOO METRO STATION) which is close to the hotel. I went down almost 3 floors by the de-escalator and then took the tram towards the museum. After getting down at
FEDERAL TRIANGLE METRO STATION, it was a nice walk of 10 minutes and I reached the museum. We spent some good time there and then we came back to Rajaji for dinner. After dinner, we came back to hotel and packed the bags as we had to check out the next day. The 5 day training was exhaustive along with the short trips to museums.
20/7/2018:
Late morning, we checked out of the Marriot and went to Holiday inn. We had lunch Rasika which is a fine dinning Indian Restra (one of the best Indian food I have ever had in USA) and went to see
the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art. It is located in a lush green garden. At the entrance, there was a robo who taught us some African words and welcomed us to the museum. The museum has many artifacts from Africa like fish traps, cloths made from animal skin, wooden carvings, etc. The objects are very different from the American history museum. As we came out from the museum, it was around 5 PM. We went to the Smithsonian castle which was in front of the museum and this is the place where it all started. The Castle - The Institution was founded in 1846 with funds from the Englishman James Smithson (1765–1829) according to his
wishes “under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.”. There are some good artifacts inside this castle as well. And there is a really huge screen, where kids can easily spend half an hour by watching different screen-savers on that screen. After spending some time there we came out and took a walk up to world war 2 memorial. Through stone architecture and bronze sculptures, the World War II Memorial recognizes the ways Americans served, honors those who fell, and recognizes the victory they achieved to restore freedom and end tyranny around the globe. Twenty-four bronze bas-relief panels flank the ceremonial entrance. To many, these panels stir memories as they tell the story of America's experience in the war. Granite columns representing each U.S. state and territory at the time of World War II ring an impressive pool with water shooting high into the air. Quotes, references to theaters, campaigns, and battles, and two massive victory pavilions chronicle the efforts Americans undertook to win the war. A wall of 4,048 gold stars reminds all of the price over 400,000 Americans paid to win that victory. A beautiful fountain makes you seat there for hours and watch its beauty. We were so tired by walking through out the day, that we then went to the hotel room, had some ready to eat lunch and slept.
21/7/2018:
We visited the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. It looks awesome from outside with a shining blue dome. This catholic church is open 365 days from 7 am to 7 pm. It has nice architecture from inside with lot of glass paintings. There are small inside guided tours where someone from the church explains about the history and the artifacts. The church has a cafeteria at the basement, but it serves mostly non-vegetarian food, so we came out for lunch. At a 10 minutes walking distance we found out "&Pizza" which served us delicious stone fired oven
fresh thin crust pizza. This was the awesome pizza I had ever had in my life.
After lunch, we took an Uber to Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. It was raining heavily. As we were dropped at the museum, we saw a big queue. I think the queue was because of the rain, everyone wanted to go to some closed place - and the nearest place was this museum. The queue was really long and I have seen such a long queue in USA for the first time. After spending good 30 minutes in the rain (umbrella was of very little use due to the wind) and cold winds, we were able to enter the museum. This museum has that famous statue of the elephant mammoth. There are many natural artifacts in this museum and kids really love this place. Do not expect any living objects here. Most of them are the fossils or some are computerized.
Radhika enjoyed here. This day was the most tiresome but still most enjoyed day. We returned to hotel room had ready-to-eat dinner and packed most of our bags for the return journey.
22/7/2018:
We took the flight back with the amazing memories of the DC museums. When I was in Pune, I was very proud of Raja Dinkar Kelkar Sangrahalay. But when I saw the museums in DC and when I experienced dedication of the museum staff and when I saw the cleanliness, neatness of the places and smiles on the staff, my proud about Raja Dinkar Kelkar Sangrahalay vanished. We need to learn a lot from these DC museums.
Details:
Holiday Inn, 2650 Jefferson Davis Hwy, Arlington, VA 22202.
Washington Marriott Wardman Park, 2660 Woodley Rd NW, Washington, DC 20008.
Canal Park: https://www.capitolriverfront.org/canal-park
National Air and Space Museum: https://airandspace.si.edu/
Potomac River: https://www.potomacriverboatco.com/
National Museum of Natural History: https://naturalhistory.si.edu/
Whitehouse: https://www.whitehouse.gov/
National Zoo: https://nationalzoo.si.edu/
Lincoln Memorial: https://www.nps.gov/linc/index.htm
Albert Einstein Memorial: http://www.nasonline.org/about-nas/visiting-nas/nas-building/the-einstein-memorial.html
Madame Tussauds: https://www.madametussauds.com/washington-dc/en/
United States Botanic Garden: https://www.usbg.gov/
National Museum of American History: http://americanhistory.si.edu/
Smithsonian National Museum of African Art: https://africa.si.edu/
Smithsonian Institution Building (Castle): https://www.si.edu/Museums/smithsonian-institution-building
World War II Memorial: https://www.wwiimemorial.com/
Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception: http://www.nationalshrine.com/site/c.osJRKVPBJnH/b.4719297/k.BF65/Home.htm
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History: https://naturalhistory.si.edu/
Expenses:
Air Tickets = $888
Hotel = $350
Food = $300
Taxi = $200
Butterfly experience = $16
Metro = $30
CycleRiksha = $50
Madam Tussauds = $26.44
3D Movie = $16
Shopping = $30
Cruise = $60
Washington DC:
Canal Park
National Air and Space Museum
Potomac River
National Museum of Natural History
Whitehouse
National Zoo
Lincoln Memorial
Albert Einstein Memorial
Madame Tussauds
United States Botanic Garden
National Museum of American History
Smithsonian National Museum of African Art
Smithsonian Institution Building (Castle)
World War II Memorial
Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception
Persons: Harshal, Juilee, Radhika
I was going to DC (yeah, they don't call it Washington or Washington DC. They just call it DC) for my SANS training and planned Juilee and Radhika's journey as well along with me. I was too lazy to book a morning flight and I ended up booking my flight in the noon. As we were planning to save some money on flights, we ended up booking a different flight for Juilee and Radhika than mine. And hence eventually I had to wake up in the morning to drop them at the airport. Hahahaha.
14/7/2018:
Juilee and Radhika's flight was in the morning 6 AM. So on the previous day we slept very early and we woke up at 3 AM. By 4 AM, Utsav came to pick us up. I accompanied Juilee and Radhika till airport. I dropped them at the gate and returned back home to relax, as my flight was in the afternoon. Due to weather (storms) their Moline - Chicago flight got delayed and then they had to run a lot in 2 minutes to catch their next connecting flight from Chicago to DC. United Airlines usually books you on the next possible flight for free if the delays are due to weather, but fortunately Juilee was able to catch the next flight. As they reached DC, they checked into the hotel Holiday inn which is like 3 minutes drive from the airport and they have free airport shuttle as well.
I started my journey from Moline at 11 AM. My journey was uneventful (Except that I forgot to checkin my bag and took it till the security gate, and then I remembered it. So I had to turn back and check it in and go again to the security check). We prepared only 1 check in bag carefully because the check in bags are expensive (like $25 per bag). We packed MTR Upama, Pohe and other food stuff which helps us survive here. It helps for morning breakfasts. In USA people take very cold and sweet breakfast. I like hot and spicy breakfast and so I always carry MTR or any other brand cuppa pohe or cuppa upama. Carrying the "cappa" stuff is necessary as you will not always get microwave, so "cuppa" can be cooked by adding just the boiling water (which you can take from the coffee makers).
I reached to DC at around 6AM. DC is 1 hour ahead of Chicago/Moline timezone. Juilee and Radhika came to DCA with the hotel shuttle. The shuttle picked me up on the top (3rd) floor of DCA and then we reached hotel at around 6:30 PM.
We did our dinner at Taj Indian restaurant, where the servers were not understanding Hindi (yet they
15/7/2018:
We checked out in the morning and then check-in to the Marriot. The hotel is pretty nice and cozy, out of budget for middle class travellers. It was like 11 am so we thought of doing lunch and then start sight-seeing. We ate pizza in Pizze, which was just around the corner. It was a perfect pizza.
We then visited National Air and Space Museum. There are two such museums in this area. One is in the DC and the another one is in VA (it's name is STEVEN F. UDVAR-HAZY CENTER). We went into the DC branch (but I heard that VA branch is bigger then the DC branch). It was amazing experience. There were real planes and parts of rockets and space shuttles. Radhika enjoyed it for some time and then got bored due to all the technical things. The 3D movie tickets were sold out, so we spent some time in the cafe and there I booked the cruise tickets and then we came out of the museum. We hired a Cycleriksha and rode around 30 minutes enjoying the views of DC monuments and
16/7/2018:
While I was at the training, Juilee and Radhika enjoyed in Butterfly Museum, Museum of Natural history, etc. In Butterfly Museum it is a big closed and temperature controlled, moist room, where
While listening to these fun moments, I was already late for the training. So I ran and took the cab back to the Marriott and Juilee took Radhika to Air and space museum to watch Panda 3D movie. As the training got over, Juilee and me coordinated to meet at whitehouse. I took taxi to the whitehouse. There are many Indian. African and Middle-Eastern Taxi drivers in here. As I got down at White-house, I met with Juilee and Radhika and we went to the location. Whitehouse is fenced and we could
There are protests going on in front of White-house 24 X 7 X 365. We saw a protest related to Immigrants and another about gay-pride. People were generally not happy with the Trump administration. We took some photos with protesters and they felt happy. Then we wandered around the fence for half an hour and then as Radhika was hungry, we headed to Pizze and had pizza and then came back to hotel and went to bed.
17/7/2018:It was a rainy day and Juilee took Radhika for a zoo visit. The zoo was big and both of them were exhausted till lunch. So In my training's lunch break, we met to Rajaji for lunch. It was convenient as the zoo, my training and Rajaji were on the same street within 5 minutes walk from each other. After my training we went to visit Lincoln Memorial. It has a big statue of Mr Lincoln. After spending some time there, I came back for my training's evening sessions. Juilee and Radhika enjoyed a parade at the Memorial. While coming back I again met them at a Chipotle for dinner. It was busy day for me due to the extensive hands-on training.
18/7/2018: In the morning, Juilee took Radhika at Albert Einstein Memorial where there is a big statue of Einstein and children can climb on it and then if you can touch his nose then you become as intelligent as he was (that's what people say). We again met at Rajaji for lunch and then Juilee took the Metro to Madam Tussaud museum of wax. Radhika enjoyed the wax statues. They also bought a
My training for over early so Juilee and Radhika took me again to the Zoo to see Pandas. They have seen it already but as I wished to se
19/7/2018:
It was the last day of my training. Juilee and Radhika went to see the Botanical garden. The garden has lot of varieties of plants and also have some tree planting activities for kids. After they returned
FEDERAL TRIANGLE METRO STATION, it was a nice walk of 10 minutes and I reached the museum. We spent some good time there and then we came back to Rajaji for dinner. After dinner, we came back to hotel and packed the bags as we had to check out the next day. The 5 day training was exhaustive along with the short trips to museums.
20/7/2018:
Late morning, we checked out of the Marriot and went to Holiday inn. We had lunch Rasika which is a fine dinning Indian Restra (one of the best Indian food I have ever had in USA) and went to see
21/7/2018:
After lunch, we took an Uber to Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. It was raining heavily. As we were dropped at the museum, we saw a big queue. I think the queue was because of the rain, everyone wanted to go to some closed place - and the nearest place was this museum. The queue was really long and I have seen such a long queue in USA for the first time. After spending good 30 minutes in the rain (umbrella was of very little use due to the wind) and cold winds, we were able to enter the museum. This museum has that famous statue of the elephant mammoth. There are many natural artifacts in this museum and kids really love this place. Do not expect any living objects here. Most of them are the fossils or some are computerized.
22/7/2018:
We took the flight back with the amazing memories of the DC museums. When I was in Pune, I was very proud of Raja Dinkar Kelkar Sangrahalay. But when I saw the museums in DC and when I experienced dedication of the museum staff and when I saw the cleanliness, neatness of the places and smiles on the staff, my proud about Raja Dinkar Kelkar Sangrahalay vanished. We need to learn a lot from these DC museums.
Details:
Holiday Inn, 2650 Jefferson Davis Hwy, Arlington, VA 22202.
Washington Marriott Wardman Park, 2660 Woodley Rd NW, Washington, DC 20008.
Canal Park: https://www.capitolriverfront.org/canal-park
National Air and Space Museum: https://airandspace.si.edu/
Potomac River: https://www.potomacriverboatco.com/
National Museum of Natural History: https://naturalhistory.si.edu/
Whitehouse: https://www.whitehouse.gov/
National Zoo: https://nationalzoo.si.edu/
Lincoln Memorial: https://www.nps.gov/linc/index.htm
Albert Einstein Memorial: http://www.nasonline.org/about-nas/visiting-nas/nas-building/the-einstein-memorial.html
Madame Tussauds: https://www.madametussauds.com/washington-dc/en/
United States Botanic Garden: https://www.usbg.gov/
National Museum of American History: http://americanhistory.si.edu/
Smithsonian National Museum of African Art: https://africa.si.edu/
Smithsonian Institution Building (Castle): https://www.si.edu/Museums/smithsonian-institution-building
World War II Memorial: https://www.wwiimemorial.com/
Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception: http://www.nationalshrine.com/site/c.osJRKVPBJnH/b.4719297/k.BF65/Home.htm
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History: https://naturalhistory.si.edu/
Expenses:
Air Tickets = $888
Hotel = $350
Food = $300
Taxi = $200
Butterfly experience = $16
Metro = $30
CycleRiksha = $50
Madam Tussauds = $26.44
3D Movie = $16
Shopping = $30
Cruise = $60
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