We hit the ground running when we got up in the morning to head to DC.  We took the Amtrak from BWI to Union Station in DC.  We were fortunate that we got my friend Gretchen to meet up with us at the station. I write these posts a few days after the fact to give myself time.  The time that this took place was on Easter Sunday…. Gretchen is another high school friend who graduated a year before me.  She currently lives in Pittsburgh where she is finishing her masters and she came down to DC so we could catch up before my moving to Germany.

We swung by the hotel to drop off our stuff and then we went north to meet up with other friends: Amanda and Lance (as well as Amanda’s mom who was visiting from Indiana).  We had lunch at Bucca di Beppo’s:

Then we headed over to the National Cathedral because it is a must see if you are in the DC area:

Of course i took photos of the stain glass windows……my favorite is the one dedicated to the moon landing.  It also has a piece of moon rock in the glass:

We ventured into the crypts where we found a beautiful chapel decorated in mosaic tiles:

 

Then we went outside where we did photos!

Then we finally made it back to the hotel for some rest before wanting to meet back up for dinner (Gretchen headed back to Pittsburgh by this time).

We went over to Amanda and Lance’s new place to see the progress (they had been spending the last three days moving so their place has been full of boxes), but their dog was happy to see us….

Oh! and the view of from roof is spectacular!

Then we went a crossed the street for some amazing Chinese food!

The service was ok at first but quickly improved (the waiter brought us some free desert – fried bananas…..delish!).  The food was fantastic, I highly recommend this place.  The price is not bad and the food is quite authentic.  Apparently when Chinese ambassadors come, they are brought here….

This is only a fraction of the mountains of food we have consumed.  It was such a great time, not to mention such great company!

By the end, we all had to waddle back to our respective places…..Thorsten crashed shortly after returning to the hotel leaving me to finally catch up on some posts for the week 😀

Oh and here were our fortunes:

Over all it has been a great start to our DC trip.  Tomorrow is an even bigger day but that’s ok! Can’t wait to share more adventures with you!