downtown

So I actually did lots today, as it was the first non rainy day since I showed up here.  I woke up late (almost 11) but was in downtown DC by 1 o'clock.  Took the metro in and decided to start with the botanical gardens, but stopped for pictures of a fountain on the way.

 I started with the botanical gardens.  :)  The fish were pretty.

There were lots of pictures, so I will only post a select few here.

Apparently I liked pictures of birds today.  This one got really close to me.

Ok, so more flower pictures, this time from inside the greenhouse.  They had lots of orchids.  I was jealous.

This plant wins for being the one with the weirdest flowers I saw all day.

Here is the best part though, I was looking up, and thinking how awesome it would be to be at the top of the greenhouse...

And then I found the stairs up, and proceeded to take these pictures.  I like seeing the top of a 30 ft palm tree at eye level.

There were more gardens, but I will just post that on fb.  You guys probably don't want 8 million pictures of flowers.  I know Eric is only reading for the food.  So after spending a good two hours in gardens, I found a shady spot on the mall and had lunch.  Then went to my favorite museum, The Freer Gallery.  It has a bunch of Asian antiques.  My second favorite part of this museum is the scrolls and the screens in the Japanese area.  I couldn't get a good picture of the screens, but there were some good ones of the scrolls.

So I tried to find my favorite part and came across this sign.

So I only got one room with ceramics, and there was very little celadon.  :(  I guess I will just have to go back several times this summer to see if they are done renovating where they keep all the celadon.  

So, since my favorite part was closed, I only spent an hour in the museum.  That's ok, the last stop for the day was the place I never got to last summer.  Eastern Market, a fairly large market, that on weekends has an outdoor area, as well as the indoor part.

They close off the street and everything.  Inside first.  The bakery was one of the first things I saw.  And although I think the one at West Side Market in Cleveland is better, this one looked delicious.  

And then I found the fresh fish.  lots of them.  Note the eels down at the end.  I thought about buying one, and then realized I have no idea what to do with an eel. And have no idea if I like them.

The outside part led me to finding a donut seller.  Three dollars for 6 mini-donuts on a stick. I almost had to.  It seemed like a requirement for Eric.

 Here is the rest of what I bought.  There was a purveyor of pasta inside, so I bought the lobster and crawfish pasta, as well as the spinach, Gorgonzola and pine nut pasta.  I made the lobster ones for dinner.  They were delicious.  The clear bag of things are cranberry scones from the bakery, and the thing on the white bag is a russian tea cake.  I was hoping it was something delicious and new, and it turned out to be a mexican wedding cake.  Why are they the same?!  Oh well, still delicious.