As Christmas was approaching, and we were likely to be heading back to Ireland early in the new year, we decided to take advantage of the few days off work and travel a bit.  Travelling during Christmas was likely to be a nightmare, especially with extra security at airports, so we thought going somewhere for New Years Eve might be a better idea.

New York was obviously the first place that came to mind.  The whole of America tunes in to watch the ball drop in Times Square.  Flights were surprisingly cheap, but the cost of hotels put us off.  Besides, we’d already seen New York pleanty of times.  Not that it isn’t a great city to visit, one of my favourites in fact, but we both wanted somewhere a little different.

We’d talked about Washington DC a few times.  After spending a couple of Summers there in the 90’s, I knew the place reasonably well, but Sandra had never been there.  So we started pricing flights and hotels.

Flights were OK, not great, but not too bad.  We got a pretty good deal on a hotel considering the time of year.  The Credit Cards were put to work and we were on our way to DC. 

On Friday I took a half day from work.  We got to the Airport in pleanty of time (unusual for us).  It’s a good thing we did,  the queue at security was pretty bad.  We seemed to catch the crowd leaving for New Years, and the crowd returning home after Christmas. 

We flew with US Airways.  I slept.  Sandra managed to read most of The Hitch Hikers guide to the Galaxy.  We flew into Reagan International Airport, which is just accross the Potomac river from The Capitol Building, and the National Mall.  On every previous trip I’ve taken to DC I’ve flown into Dulles or even Baltimore.  Reagan is definitely the airport I’ll aim for in future. 

Not that Dulles or Baltimare are much of a problem, there’s a shuttle from Dulles that’ll take you right to the Subway.  But Reagan has a Subway right there, and it’s only one or two stops to the heart of the cities Hotels, Museums, Monuments etc.

We were booked into the L’Enfent Plaza Hotel, which is right on the Mall, and has a subway stop downstairs.  In fact L’Enfent Plaza is the station I used to use whenever I visited the Air and Space Museum back in the 90’s.  I made the mistake was taking the wrong entrance out of the Subway.  I took the exit I used to take when going to the museums.  I made the mistake of thinking the Hotel would be upstairs at the entrance to the subway.  In fact if we’d taken the other exit we’d have found ourselves right in the lobby of the hotel.   As it happens we got a bit of excercise walking around the block to get back to the hotel.

It was cold.  Tampa had been unusually warm as we were leaving.  After a bit of searching we found the entrance to the hotel, checked in and found our room.  The website had promised that the hotel had views of the Washington Monument.  I suspect if we had gotten a room with a view it would have cost a lot more than we were paying.  We got a good deal, and in return we got no view.   I wasn’t too bothered.

We rested for a while, flicked through the channels on the TV.  We don’t have cable at home so we always get a kick out of hotel TV’s.  

Then it was time to eat.  This was a problem, because although I’ve visited DC a lot of times, I always stayed with a family in the area, so I rarely ate out.  And when I did it wasn’t in downtown DC, it was out in Friendship Heights or Bethesda.

It was still early so we hopped on the Metro (subway) and decided to try Bethesda.  About a mile North of where I lived back in the 90’s, Bethesda is the first Metro stop in the state of Maryland after you leave DC.  Friendship Heights is about one mile South of where I lived and was the stop I’d usually walk or bus to, it is right on the border of DC and Maryland.

Bethesda probably has more restaurants packed into one place than anywhere else in the area.  UNO’s Chicago Grill was one of my favourite places to eat when I used to go to the Cinema.  It’s close to the Subway, which is a plus when it’s cold and you’re tired.

They’d completely redecorated the place since I was there last.  There’s also a lot more to choose from on the Menu.  We ate up,  paid up, and headed back to the hotel.  We had an early start in the morning.  We’re joining a Photography Safari.  We’ll be taken around to various monuments and locations in DC and given tips on how to photograph them.