Washington, D.C.: Day 1 August 22, 2016

Back in July, my younger daughter realized that she had some random days off in August that partially coincided with the Orioles playing the Nationals in D.C. She asked me, if I'd like to go with her for a couple of days to see the game and to get together with my older daughter who lives there. I'm love spending time with my daughters, love travel, the O's are my team and, best of all, I'm retired. So, of course, I agreed!
She spent the night at our house to make it easier for her dad to get us to the airport. We left the house at 8:10 am and arrived at OIA at 8:50 am. I'd tried to pay for our bags online the day before, when I checked us in, to no avail. However, it turns out that for American Airlines, you pay at the kiosk at the airport. There is no reason to print boarding passes at home, since they just go ahead and print again at the kiosk. By 8:57, we were in the line to drop our bags.
Since I have TSA Pre, I knew that I'd have to go to the other side of the terminal to go through security. We were pleasantly surprised to see she had it on her boarding pass, too. Perhaps, because I'd been the one to order the tickets, they gave her the same clearance. As it was, we were through security by 9:09.
We had about an hour to wait out at the gate. I like to be one of the first from my zone to be in line so that there is less of a chance of getting gate checked or having my carryon very far away from me. At 10:30, we were seated in 24D and E for American Flight 802. As I cleaned my seat area and tray table with hand sanitizer, I watched a large family who sounded French struggling with all of their carry on luggage.
At 10:48, we pushed back from the gate and at 11:10, we finally took off, 20 minutes late. There was a lot of turbulence during the flight and especially close to landing, in spite of the lovely day. We landed at 12:51. It took a while to disembark and we decided to collect our luggage before stopping for lunch. Probably due to the time it took to disembark, we found that the luggage carousel was already done, and it was the wrong one to boot!
We went back upstairs to Ben's Chili Bowl, after confirming with my older daughter via text that the one in town was a "thing". We got 2 chocolate shakes, because, you know, chocolate shakes!, an Original Half Smoke, a Classic Chili Dog, and fries. Had we known the dogs come with chips, we would not have ordered the fries. As is our wont, we split the meals, so as to be able to taste more things. We thoroughly enjoyed our meal.

At 2:10, we headed for the Metro. There is an enclosed pedestrian bridge over the road from the terminal to the Metro entrance. There, you can buy Metro passes. However, we already have passes from previous visits. With the help of someone at the pay station, we were able to determine there was more than $10 on each card. So, we chose not to add to them at that time and just figured out where to go to catch the train into town. I'd looked up the Metro station closest to the hotel, while at home, which helped. By 2:30, we were waiting for the train and enjoying the beautiful sky.

At 2:39, we boarded the train to town. For a while, we were above ground and could enjoy the scenery crossing the river, but most of the trip was below ground. We reached Gallery Place at 2:52 and I noted that the trip cost us $2.05 each. We had a little trouble choosing the best exit, but once we did, it was an easy walk to the Fairfield Inn, where we had reservations, and we arrived at 3:05.

The room seemed nice and we took a little time to organize ourselves and get water for our outing.
We left at 3:39 and went back to Gallery Place to get on the Yellow Line at 3:44, which we rode as far as Pentagon. There, at 3:54, we got off to wait 4 minutes for the Blue Line to take us to Arlington. We arrived at 4 and found an elevator to ride up to ground level from the station, which is situated under a bridge. The trip cost $2.20.  Our first view was of Arlington House, which is the Custis-Lee Mansion, home of Robert E. Lee high above the cemetery.

My daughter, who works in the sun at Disney, found the temperature to be a big improvement. I found it hot. There is no water in the cemetery, of course, and I was glad we brought our own. There were very many other people visiting even this late in the day and they did seem to observe the sign:

I've visited the cemetery before, so I left it up to my daughter to decide what she wanted to see. We headed first for the Kennedy memorial. Along the way, we passed the famous row upon row of tombstones.

Later, we passed areas of non-standard memorials and we could not figure out why. Some were old, like the one with the name of the street on which my husband grew up in Frederick, Maryland:

Others, like that of Robert McNamara, were not:

There is a guy acting as a kind of guard at the Kennedy site, although he is not in a uniform or standing formally. I suppose, he is there to make sure people are quiet as the sign requests. Across from the graves of John F. Kennedy, his wife and two infant children is a curved wall with engraved quotes from him. It's really rather nice that the babies were buried there with them. The whole thing is a moving tribute to JFK.

Around the bend from the memorial are the graves of Robert F. and Edward "Teddy" Kennedy and the memorial to the oldest Kennedy boy, Joseph, who was killed in WW II. These are simple graves and markers in keeping with the rows of gravestones you see as you walk up the hill to the graves.

My daughter had wanted to see the Civil War Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, but it was a hike up the hill and I knew my knees, which were in full rebellion, would not let me do it. She opted not to go in order to not be late for the changing of the guard at the more famous Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which takes place on the hour. We went down stairs and up stairs in our trek across the cemetery, but made it with a few minutes to spare.
A soldier comes out and tells everyone to stand and to maintain silence during the ceremony. He marches off and comes back with the new guard, whose weapon he inspects. It is all very solemn and measured. The crowd was respectful.

 






Afterwards, we went into the building behind the tomb to see the exhibits. They give the history of the tomb, show pictures of each of the burials and tell how the bodies were chosen.  Only one is in the large tomb, which contains the remains of a soldier from WWI. In the ground, under two of the three markers are remains of soldiers from WWII and the Korean War. There were remains from a Vietnam War soldier, but he was blessedly identified through DNA and returned to his family.
You also learn the symbolism of the guard's uniform and actions. Here's a little of that:

Our older daughter texted to see where we were and decided to work late, when she found out we were not ready to return to town. We strolled back down the hill to the visitor's center, which was not as cool as one might like. The restroom did have a big blower, whose cool air was helpful. We took our time in the shop, which is not unusual for us.
We texted my older daughter and  headed back to the Metro station, taking the elevator closest to us to be on the correct platform. We had a a bit of time to wait there, but there was a helpful bench. We got on the train at 6:24 and were at Pentagon in minutes. At 6:40, we boarded a Yellow train to Gallery Place, which we reached at 6:47. We changed to the Red line at 6:53 and got off at Dupont 4 minutes later. This trip cost $2.30.
My older daughter was waiting in the plaza at the top of the escalator, where a band was playing. Greetings were hard to hear, but it was good to see her. She immediately led us to Fantom, her comic book store. The handicapped rules must not apply here, because, although the store is on the second floor, there is no elevator. With difficulty, I made the climb. Her friends who work there were thrilled to meet us. They obviously love her and were very happy to meet more of her nerdy family.  We looked around and the younger daughter chose a book she wanted as a gift. After paying for it, we had to make the more difficult trip back down the stairs.

We were not up to make a decision as to where she should take us to dinner, so my older daughter decided to lead us back to a nearby Greek restaurant that she likes called Zorba's Cafe. Even at 7:30 on a Monday night, it was busy. Most of the outside tables were taken as were the ones on the first floor. She did not want me to climb upstairs, so she found a table with two chairs at the front window and pulled up a third. After looking over the menu, I was told to stay put and mind the bags, while the girls went off to order dinner at the counter. By the time they came back a table had opened up with more space and we moved to it. Soon the pagers went off and they got our meals. My older daughter ordered the Yero Plate, aka a gyro.

My younger daughter and I chose two meals to share: the Souvlaki Plate, because who doesn't like meat on a stick? and the Mousaka, because we haven't had that in a while. Both were outstanding, although we could have lived without more fries!

We are a dessert-loving family and my older daughter helped us choose two to split three ways,
the Galaktoboureko, which is a pastry of custard in fillo dough moistened with honey, and Rezogalo, which is a rice pudding with cinnamon. We like rice pudding, but the pastry was really amazing.

We must be on vacation, because we didn't finish dinner and leave until 9:08pm. The air was so pleasant when we left the restaurant! So different from the mugginess at home. We were at the Dupont station waiting for the Red Line at 9:11, and it arrived three minutes later. At 9:21, we were off at the Gallery Place station. The trip cost $1.75. Since the station wasn't busy, we took the time to add $20 to each of our Metro passes using our credit cards at the machines, and this would last us the rest of the trip. We were at the hotel at 9:35, waiting for my older daughter's Uber ride to show up. By 9:40, we were in our room and getting ready for showers. A very good start to the trip!