As I said earlier we arrived at Union Station in D.C. early in the morning. We were starving so we found food at one of the many restaurants downstairs from the tracks. The station in D.C. is really quite nice is set up like an airplort in that it has monitors for watching your train, newspaper stands, restaurants, bookstores etc.. Downstairs is the connection to the metro which reminded us of being in Europe. I just love being able to get around without relying on taxis or renting a car. We weren’t in any great hurry to get to our Bed and Breakfast because we couldn’t check in until 3:00pm and it was only 11:00am when we got done eating. Still tired from getting poor sleep on the train we longed for a bed to take a nap in. We ventured to the metro station and found our route (the red line) and purchased tickets. The Washington D.C. metro works a lot like the London Underground in that you need to enter the metro using a ticket and you can’t get out unless you still have it so it’s best not to toss the ticket until you’ve exited. This is unlike Paris, Prague and Budapest because in those cities you don’t need anything to exit. In Budapest you can even get on with nothing but you risk being nailed by the authorities which can get expensive.

So in looking for accomodations in D.C. I went online to my usual places and the cheapest place was $144/night and it was a Super8 in a bad neighborhood. In contrast to North Carolina it is really expensive here. I looked at all the different guidbooks on the city for accomodations and I found that most recommended the Adams Inn in the Adams Morgan district. Considering how popular it is I didn’t think they’d have a room but I called anyway and to my suprise they had a room but no bath for $109. That’s a lot cheaper and much nicer too. The Adams Inn is three old brick buildings that have been turned into a Bed and Breakfast. They have a free continental breakfast at the breakfast table, high speed wireless and wired internet, cooking facilities and plenty of maps. I found myself getting reacquainted with sneaking around after dark on loose hardwood floors though. Everything at the Adams Inn squeaks including the wooden poster beds and the floors. This isn’t the perfect place for newlyweds to try out their stuff because people would definately complain about the noise. It was a nice experience staying there though and the Adams Morgan district is wonderful.

So it was raining and we arrived early so we sat on the porch and waited for our room to be finished. I fell asleep sitting up because I was so tired. When our room was ready we moved upstairs and took a quick nap. After we decided to see what Adams Morgan had to offer and ventured out. It seems there is quite a lot of Spanish speaking people there. Even the east Indian run Internet cafe had their signs in English and Spanish. Later I learned that the spanish people were from El Salvador and other Spanish speaking nations and not just Mexico. I don’t know what they were doing there but there were many stores with signs in spanish so obviously the spanish were plenty. We ate at a Mexican restaurant that was actually excellent. They had cuisine from different regions so I ordered the Zapoteca plate which had chicken mole a tamale and a bunch of other stuff on it. The quality was at least as good as any place in Seattle. After dinner we walked around a bit and took pictures than returned to the metro to go downtown. We didn’t want to miss anything since we only had a few days here. We managed to find our way to the National Mall and I took night photos of the Washington monument and the capital building. Tired, we returned to the Inn and went to sleep.