A bright and sparkling morning awaited us as we drew back the curtains.  Time to get out and enjoy the city – after breakfast!  We had a recommendation for Ted’s Bulletin on Capitol Hill and directions via the metro, so off we set in search of “our” station.  It’s in the adjacent McPherson Square – but where?

 

 

We could tell it was around here somewhere from the rumbling we could hear through the grating in the pavement.  But we couldn’t see a station at all.

 

 

Aha! Sneaky.  The sign is just around the corner, but blends in well with the scenery, don’t you think?

 

 

First buy our tickets.  We’ve done this the world over and yet every machine has its little idiosyncrasies.  This one decided that just one card was enough and was reluctant to issue a second card.  Eventually, as we gave up and began to walk away in search of another machine, it reset and we started over. 

 

 

No cute names here, just “Smartrip”.  Having bought $10 cards, we thought that maybe we’d better add a little more to each, whilst there was no-one about.  After all, there’s nothing worse than trying to do these things with a queue of locals behind, all in a hurry.

 

 

We managed to tame the monster of a machine to add another $10 to each card and set off at last.

 

 

The signs were clear and we noted we needed to travel seven stops – just as well, since the trains travel very fast, the stops are short and there are neither station announcements nor information about the next stop displayed on the train itself.

 

 

We had the train to ourselves for a while.

 

 

So, in lieu of people watching, we tried to work out the advert.

 

 

Seven stops later, we were out into the bright sunshine again.

 

 

This was a fairly smart, residential district with young families out and about enjoying the fresh air on a sunny Saturday morning.

 

 

Ted’s Bulletin was a popular spot for breakfast too, so we had a short wait.  Never mind – it was well worth waiting for!

 

 

We resisted the peanut butter and bacon cake, not to mention the home made pop tarts.

 

 

Nevertheless, we still left feeling totally stuffed, so decided to walk back rather than take the metro again.  After all, it felt so good to be out in the sunshine.

 

 

In no time at all, we were almost at the Library of Congress.

 

 

A little bit of cone avoidance was in order, because these were special Library of Congress cones!

 

 

As we approached the back of the Capitol building, we thought we’d take a selfie.

 

 

Even with all the scaffolding around the dome, the Capitol is a stunning building, isn’t it?

 

 

Walking around to the front, we remembered doing a tour when we were last here in 2002 and standing on the spot where the President stands to give the inaugural address.  Today, we weren’t so bothered and carried on past the sightseers, stopping only to take a picture of the view.

 

 

The National Mall was looking rather greener than it did back then, too, because we were here in the summertime and it was incredibly hot and dry.  It’s much more pleasant to be here at this time of the year, that’s for sure.

 

 

Though the birds were skating on the ice of the reflecting pool.  Though it was warmer today than yesterday, it’s still pretty cold – around 3C according to my phone.

 

 

We headed across the Mall, then, towards Constitution Avenue and the National Gallery of Art.  We felt we’d walked our breakfast off by now and were ready for a bit of culture.  I’ll tell you about it in the next post.