Washington D.C.

Our trip to D.C. was fun--we got the required touristy stuff out of the way on Friday...we saw the Washington monument:
And the Capitol Building:

And the White House Christmas tree--unfortunately the President had just landed, so the park the tree was in was blocked off for a few hours. Lots of people milled around waiting for the gates to open, but it was really cold on Friday, so we snapped a picture and left for the comfort of a warm restaurant!

On Friday, we also went to the American History Museum--I was really excited to see Kermit the Frog and Oscar the Grouch on display--I had no idea that the original Oscar was orange! His color change was explained away with, "He lives in a garbage can and rolls around in muck, so he turned green." I was very disappointed that the first ladies' inauguration gowns display was temporarily closed, but at least I also got to see the ruby slippers from 'The Wizard of Oz" and Julia Child's kitchen.

On Saturday, we went to the Spy Museum--best museum EVER! I usually have a 1 1/2 hour attention span at museums, but we were at the Spy Museum for almost 4 hours and I was enthralled the whole time. We saw some really cool, high-tech spy gadgets--the lipstick pistol was my favorite!

The weekend was mostly about good food and drink, though--from Lebanese tapas to homemade noodles in Chinatown to pitchers of sangria and margaritas to French toast, oh my, did we ever eat and drink! Thank goodness we walked miles around the city, or else I might have had to ask for a seatbelt extender on the flight home!

Speaking of the flight home, we missed it! We got to Dulles, checked in, and went through security with about 30 minutes to spare. We went to our gate, but a flight to New Hampshire was boarding, so we went to the bakery next to the gate for a drink. We heard announcements for Binghamton, Savannah, Providence, but nothing for Syracuse. We had seen a sign saying that flights close 10 minutes before their scheduled departure, so we went back to the gate 20 minutes before our scheduled departure. We sat at the gate for a couple of minutes, and then decided to ask the gate agent if the flight would be on time...he told us that our flight was closed and our seats had been given away to other people! We were completely floored--it had never been announced, and we were there in plenty of time! Also, our bags were on the plane--don't airlines usually passenger-match and page people who have checked luggage but haven't boarded the plane? The gate agent obviously realized he had screwed up, as he offered us 2 free round trip tickets to anywhere in the continental U.S. for our inconvenience! We ended up getting on the 10 PM flight to Syracuse, and arrived home at 11 PM instead of 6 PM. Our bags were waiting for us at the airport, and now we have free tickets, so this morning, I am very grateful for all the craziness, but yesterday, when I was so tired and just wanted to get home, I really wasn't feeling the gratitude!