DC_NYC Trip Day 3

We woke up early enough to say goodbye to Rob who headed out to the Faith & Knowledge Conference and tried to go back to sleep. It didn't work, so I tried heading over, but Saturday subways are not as prompt as weekday ones so I walked back to got Ashley up and ready so that we could go over together. We first went to Starbucks, for my first time ever and ordered Kim's suggestion of steamed caramel milk. And yum. And will you look at my hair in that photo, I look like a 70s star (it's the wind from the tunnel).

 Then we walked all the way over to the conference. It was a mile, in the drizzly rain. Suffice it to say, once we got there we had to redo our hair and makeup and dry out our luggage. But it was worth it. The conference was so good. My friends Chelsea and Blair did amazingly as did this hot historian husband....

 

Once lunch was over, Ash and I walked the mile back to the subway station (this time, no rain and less luggage and we talked the whole time so it was much better) to go Washington D.C. while Rob stayed to listen to the rest of the conference. Since our Newseum tickets lasted two days, I took Ashley back there. She loved it as well. 

Had to show her the bathroom headlines

Rob and I missed the font wall (how could we!) as well as the 4-d video so we went to that, which was fu.

 Then over to the Berlin Wall. Here is the front side.

 And the back...

 Over to the pulitzer prize winning photos and to the FBI exhibit.

All the way up to the top of the building to get photos of us and the Capital.

 Then back down to the historic newspapers. Ashley was excited to see the one of Joseph Smith's martyrdom was front and center.

 Then she decided she was too happy (notice the black bars, that mans someone important has died).

 We finished with a photo of the first two women in the White House. Nice.

 We walked over to the Musuem of Natural History through the sculpture garden.

We decided to do go first to the mammal exhibit and decided to document the tongue-sticking-out animals. (Look at the shadow on the wall).

 

 And this cute fox's tongue.

 And this deer picks its nose with its tongue.

 And then over to the oceanic display, where I found out that Ashley doesn't like birds and whales.

Then to dinosaurs.

 Love me some stegasaoruses.

 Then to the gems. Auquamarine is Ashley's (and Marri's) birthstone.

 And my amethyst.

 Ashley needed to find a frog for someone whose name rhymes with "lion". We found a skeleton of one. In fact the skeleton exhibit was the most interesting. Wow.

 

  

Then we decided to show you this fire extinguisher, because it was in a display. 

 Over to dinner at D.C.'s Chinatown. We got Asian crab cakes. Mmmmm.

 We went back to the subway to find out that the train was delayed and broken, the train Rob was on. And we had a bus to NYC to catch in a half hour. I was freaking out. We couldn't talk to Rob and finally the train came (Ashley was absolutely unflappable, she is so cool and calm now, if not a little bit crazy of a driver). As we decided if she could get on the train "where is Rob???" Ashley calmly said "oh, he's in that car, come on." So all was well and we made our bus fine, wherein we settled in for a 4.5 hour Megabus ride to NYC and as we got going, Ashley gifted me with my amethyst from the museum for my birthday.

As we drove into the city (after talking and listening to Stiff on mp3) I saw this billboard, which made me laugh since Ginger is our NYC cousin whom we would seeing tomorrow night.

 

  

Then...we walked out of the bus station just as the clock chimed midnight (and thus my birthday began):

 

It was glorious at night, really touristy, but fun. We got some beef kabobs from a food truck, walked Times Square, and Ashley picked me up my birthday cake (cupcakes) at Crumbs. They were so good. 

 

Notice the "Book of Mormon Musical" above our heads.

We're going to see "My Name is Asher Lev" later that day.

And finally, about 1:30 we got to our hotel (a Holiday Inn in Midtown) after figuring out the subway and walking a few blocks and dove into our cupcakes, which were sooooooooooooooo good. What a fun way to start my birthday. And then we crashed to sleep.