Virginia Trip: Part Three

 We were able to sleep in a little bit on Monday  morning and then headed back into the city for our tour of NPR!!  I didn't even know this was a possibility until Amanda told me about it on Saturday.  I made a reservation for a Monday morning tour that night.  It did mean that instead of staying in Williamsport on Sunday  night we would have to drive straight back to DC after our dinner with Erik's family.  I was very thankful Erik was willing to appease me :) 

 To say I was geeking out on this tour would be a gigantic understatement!  I was like crazy-weirdly-excited! Our tour guide was an intern, who to be honest knew less about NPR programs and podcasts than I did haha, but she was great and told us all about the history of NPR and what NPR is doing right now in the world of journalism.

 We went around to the different floors and learned what each one did.  From a look out point on one of the top floors, we could see the newsroom working.  I was so excited when our tour guide pointed out Lakshmi Singh who had just come out of a little studio after recording the next hour's news update!  :)  It was cool to learn that the people that the do the hourly updates have like the toughest job of anyone.  They have to scour all of their sources of information, write up a script, get it approved, and record it all in a short time. 

 The tour guide took us in the main recording studio.  The one where they record Morning Edition and All Things Considered.  That was super cool!

 Then she led us to the Arts section and we stopped at Bob Boilen's desk- the one where they record the Tiny Desk Concerts!  She even pointed out a water bottle that had been used by Adele when she recorded her Tiny Desk Concert, and the NPR team saved it haha I was hoping to see Linda Holmes, a girl I really really like that does Pop Culture Happy Hour, but I didn't.  I did point out Stephen Thompson (another PCHH) to Erik though!  His (pardon me) ugly black hair is quite distinctive.  Oh and earlier when we were looking through the glass windows I squealed, "That's Bob Mondello!" (who is an NPR movie critic) The tour guide was like, "Uh, yeah you are actually right, that is Bob Mondello" ;)  Later in the tour she pointed out Sam Sanders which was super fun too.

 I stopped in the gift shop to pick up something for myself (the T shirt I put on for my picture haha) and a thank you gift to my Mom for watching the kids (a cute fruit and veggie tote bag, some edible green seeds, and a Cherry Blossom themed origami set).  Anyway, I am so so happy I got to do this tour!  My one regret is I didn't ask which studio Diane Rehm does her show!  I was on the look out for her, but I wish I saw where the magic happens ;)

 After NPR we wanted to get some lunch before our Segway Tour at 3:00.  Erik was craving more gyros after our yummy food truck lunch on Saturday.  We drove to where they parked, but there weren't any!  I don't know if they just park on the weekends or what, but we were pretty disappointed.  So I looked on yelp to find some more Greek places.   The closest one was called Moby Dick.  Erik had eaten there a few times in McLean with Jimmy, so he was excited for it.  Our walk took us through DC's Chinatown which was fun.

 Well when we got to the destination,  I realize I had accidentally led us to another Greek place called The Pie.  The menu looked good to me, but there was no meat and Erik really wanted a gyro!  So we walked another mile or so to a different Greek spot, and guess what?  No gyro meat haha Poor Erik had walked all over and could only have chicken kabobs and veggies.  I thought my salad was delicious though.  I was obsessed with the blueberry/basil lemonade I had with it!

 Had to take a picture of the statue of Lafayette.  We listened to the Hamilton soundtrack quite a bit on our trip.  The lyrics to Guns and Ships were CONSTANTLY running through my head all weekend! "Yo. Turns out we have a secret weapon!

An immigrant you know and love who’s unafraid to step in!
He’s constantly confusin’, confoundin’ the British henchmen
Ev’ryone give it up for America’s favorite fighting Frenchman!"  His fast rapping after that part is the best :)

 Anyway, we were super excited to do our Segway tour!  I loved the Segway tour I did on our Nyholm girl weekend in San Francisco.  And I knew Erik would love it as well!

 Our tour guide was a student at Howard University and she was really cute and knew a lot!  After making us all feel comfortable on these machines we set off.  One thing that was different right away between this Segway tour and the SF one was this tour guide expected a lot of us from the beginning!  The first part of our tour was riding through the busy streets in DC.  We rode in the car lane too!  Thoughou the tour, we rode on the sidewalks, bike lines, and streets. We also had faster speeds right away.

I loved learning about the history of all of the buildings around the National Mall.  This one is the Eisenhower Administration Building that now houses offices for the vice president and first lady.

 FBI building

 This place looked really cool, and I will have to remember it for next trip.  It is the Newsuem and it's all about the press in our country.  Outside of the museum everyday they post the front page of a newspaper from each of the 50 states.

 Canadian Embassy which is the only one to be so close to the White House.

 Capitol!

 Supreme Court Building

 An art gallery . . . I can't remember the name

 The African American History Museum which will  open in September.  I'm super excited for this one- it sounds really cool.

 World War II memorial.

 The Lincoln Memorial was our last stop.  I have to say the funny things that happened there.  There was this middle aged couple from Texas (they were Texas proud, let me tell you!).  The wife was really nice, but the husband got on my nerves.  From the very beginning of the tour, he never stayed with the group and just went off which I could tell made the tour guide nervous.  Well, at the Lincoln Memorial, he was not looking were he was going and totally crashed into another segway and fell down!  Once I realized he wasn't hurt, I felt it kind of served him right!  (this sounds so mean now that I am writing it!) 

The other funny/sad story was about this nice couple from England that Erik and I liked.  From the beginning, one of the guys reminded me so much of Jonathon Groff (whom I am openly obsessed with).  Anyway, I told him and he didn't know who Jonathon Groff was, but his husband did know and thought I was being far too generous haha Anyway, the non- J. Groff of the couple had his Segway RUN OUT OF BATTERIES  at the Lincoln Memorial.  The poor tour guide had to give him hers, and  she had to pull the Segway on foot all the way back to the office while we rode very slowly to stay in pace with her.  I was kind of surprised that they didn't have someone come rescue her.  Anyway, it was definitely a fun tour, and now Erik wants to buy his own segway haha

 I made reservations at a place called Alta Strada for dinner.  It was delicious!  While we were there it started POURING, so we were thanking our lucky stars that we were blessed with some great weather on our DC day and the storm held off until we were done :)

 After dinner we drove back to Winchester.  Erik really wanted to see some ProBuild friends.  That night we met up with Matt and his fiancé Emily.  They are such a sweet couple.  We had them over for dinner or 4th of July a couple of times while we lived in Winchester and they had us over to their place at least twice as well.  They are actually getting married in June, but we can't make it for that.  Anyway, the only place open for dessert was Outback, so we had a nice visit there.

In the morning, Erik went to the plant to see people. I stayed and worked out, got a Starbucks breakfast, and then went to the George Washington Office Museum to see if there was anything cool in the gift shop to get the kids (I got a cool wax sealer for letters and a picture of Washington with some famous quotes on it)

 For like the third time in a row, we were a little late for our flight!  It was a bit stressful and we didn't get a nice relaxing lunch like we thought we would, but it all worked out and before we knew it were landing in Salt Lake.  We really did have such a great time on our trip, and I am just so thankful for my Mom that took such a good care of the kids and played with them so much!