Two trips to Washington, D.C

Duration: 4 days
Type: educational travel

This April, we were lucky enough to make not one but two trips to the nation's capital. Since both visits were short and focused less on sightseeing than on Arsyushka's participation in the National Geography and History Bee, I've decided to combine them into a single account rather than break everything down day by day.

I'll write about the competition itself on his page. Here, I'd rather focus on Washington and its surroundings.

Most of my research on what absolutely had to be seen in just a few days in the District of Columbia came from Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol. I consider it an excellent city guidebook, and it accompanied us throughout the trip. Following its lead, I'll be describing many of the places we visited—and quoting from it quite a lot along the way.

Like Robert Langdon, we arrived at Dulles Airport. Unlike him, however, we didn't spot the famous obelisk from the air—he was flying in from Boston, while we came from Seattle. We first saw it while driving through the capital that evening, and, naturally, felt the same pleasant sense of anticipation.