My feet hurt. No, that’s not the word. Ache? Scream?

My buddy Tim has recently moved to the Baltimore area, so today, I took him on a tour of the National Mall in DC. We wanted to meet our buddy Nick, but apparently he overslept. Like, waaaaay overslept. His loss: your loss, Nick!

We took the Metro from Grosvenor to Federal Triangle with the intention of lunching at the Post Office Pavilion. It’s supposed to open at twelve. I suppose it’s run by someone without a watch, because they didn’t open until about a quarter after. While we were hungry — and one of the dining establishment purports to sell gourmet hot dogs — the metal detectors kind of discouraged us (to eat? are you kidding me?) so we ended up eating at a place called Harriet’s on 11th Street. Not too bad, but a bit pricey: $4.25 for a mug of Yuengling, I’d rather the mug didn’t look like a kid’s cup.

Stomachs satisfied, we walked south to the mall, then bore west around the Washington Monument and along the Reflecting Pool to the Lincoln Memorial. From the Lincoln Memorial, we walked around the Tidal Pool, visiting the FDR and Jefferson Memorials before heading back to the Mall and heading east on Independence Avenue, went into the Air & Space Museum. Saw some exhibits, tracked down the USS Enterprise (both the starship, and the awesome 10-years in the making model of the aircraft carrier on the second level), then headed out just as it started to drizzle. We made a beeline for the Archives Metro, where we had an uneventful trip to Gallery Place, where we hit traffic from the game (heard people talking about the Wizards, but saw a lot of people in Cubs & Nationals gear, so who knows). Sadly, this was my mistake: I accidentally led us to the platform for the Glenmont bound train, and we missed the first train to Shady Grove. By the time we got back over, a completely empty with-the-lights-turned-off train pulled into the station, turned on its lights, and then we were urged in like sardines in a tin can. Holy crap.

Actually, by the time we got to Woodley Park, the train had emptied a bit. This was our stop: there’s a nice little Chinese place on the second floor of a building almost directly across Connecticut from the stop. Tim had tofu, I had General Tso’s. After, we walked north along Connecticut to the Cleveland Park stop. Beautiful area, and I made note of some apartments in the area, building on Thursday, when, enroute to a happy hour in Arlington, I stopped through and got information from some places. We had considered stopping through into the National Zoo briefly, but the weather discouraged us. We would’ve been back a lot sooner to Grosvenor, but I made another boo-boo on the Metro and we wound up taking the train back to Woodley Park.

This, as it happens, turned out to be a good thing: the Chinese food? Tasted good, but my stomach started cramping, and thank goodness there’s a customer restroom at Grosvenor (you gotta ask to be let into the back area), and I’m not going to explain much farther except to say I’m really really really glad that Metro exists.

Did I mention my feet hurt? Because, yeah.