We arrived safe and sound yesterday without much airport or flight drama. The hotel room is fairly small, but clean and in a good location in between the White House and Dupont Circle. Once we figured out where to stuff all of our luggage, we headed out for dinner. Purposely wanting to be casual for our first night in town, we looked for a local burger joint that gets high reviews - Five Guys. After a bit of an adventure getting there, the food lived up to the hype. It reminded us of In & Out Burger in So Cal, with fresh ingredients and yummy fries cooked in peanut oil. A couple distinctions - it offers your choice of many free toppings and there’s a giant barrel of free peanuts from which to help yourself (because a double patty burger and a mountain of fries apparently isn’t enough food :} ).

The guys downstairs that work in the hotel are quite the trio. We like them very much. If I had to guess, the bellman is from Kenya or somewhere close - tall, very nice, with a good smile. The first man behind the registration desk is a gay Indian man. He’s fabulous. The other guy is a hip African-American who always wants to go with us wherever we say we’re going. There should seriously be a tv show sitcom made after these three. Hilarious to watch them interact with each other and the guests (most of all us!).

This morning we started the day with our first glimpse of the White House as we approached Lafayette Park by bus. It was so impressive and fun to see it for the first time. It is very cold and rainy here - 40s and windy. Brrrrr. But we stood in the elements to get two limited-number Garden Tour tickets. Apparently, they do a White House Garden Tour twice a year. We were lucky enough to catch the Fall one this weekend. After snagging 10a tickets, we killed some time in the White House Visitor’s Center. Not as impressive as it could be, but it gave us some context for the Garden Tour and the Inside the White House Tour we will take later in the week.

The best part about the Garden Tour is how close we got to the White House. Yes, we saw Jackie Kennedy’s Garden and lots of trees identified by the presidents who had them planted. But, we were so close to the entrance of the White House and the West Wing that we could have walked right in. Well, there would have been 10 Secret Service uniformed police in our way if we tried, but you get the idea. It was worth braving the elements to get that vantage point.

Next was brunch at the Tabard Inn, the oldest consistently running Inn in DC. It’s old and eclectic and cool. Mom went for lobster bisque and crab cakes. I had a yummy frittata. They are known for their homemade donuts, so we tried some, and they were delicious served with vanilla whipped cream. But, I was so chilled to the bone by that time that my favorite part was being in the heat and the never-ending cups of hot coffee.

We spent some time in the Museum of American History in the afternoon. We thoroughly enjoyed seeing Julia Child’s Kitchen, especially after we recently saw the movie “Julie & Julia” and mom just read Julia’s biography. It’s her actual kitchen that is there, along with all of her utensils, pots, pans, plus many pictures, videos, quotes and descriptions. I didn’t realize until today how much we owe Julia. I love good food and wine, and she was a major influence in bringing those elements to the US. Hers was the first cooking show. Now we have an entire network devoted to them. She lead the way for all modern American foodies. Yay Julia!

We also saw a house at the American History Museum that they traced the history of to four families who lived there, starting at the turn of the century. Interesting. We’ll have to make our way back to this museum because there are many interesting exhibits and we were only able to scratch the surface. We headed back to the hotel to get ready for an early dinner out and a show.

Dinner was at TenPenh, an excellent Asian Fusion restaurant downtown. We got to taste lots of interesting things on a prix fixe, pre-theatre menu - lumpia, spare ribs, shrimp in red curry sauce, lobster w/ fried spinach, and a yummy chocolate, caramel and ginger dessert. It was all very good.

The show was called Laugh Before You Cry, by Tyler Perry. Most of us know Tyler Perry from his Medea fame, but Madea didn’t show up in this show. It was a comedy drama about the lives of a group of African Americans living in an apartment building. There was some wonderful soulful music and some parts were simply hysterical. Most funny of all, I think we were the only white people in the audience. Not that we cared, but we stood out like a sore thumb.

It’s time for bed. We have another long day tomorrow. Check out our pictures at my Flickr account.