|
Nthing the recommendation to try Ethiopian food. If you're new to it, get one of the combo platters (meat, veg, or mixed). Bear in mind it's really filling, so sharing a platter for two should be plenty of chow. Anecdotally, I have *never* run out of Ethiopian food regardless of group size, it's magical like that. It can be kinda spicy but the server should be able to tell you what to try/avoid and/or can make you some milder stuff. If you like raw beef, kitfo is awesome, and doro wat (chicken and hardboiled eggs in a pepper-tomato sauce) is the utter classic, and all the veggie dishes are good. You absolutely do not want to drive in DC proper; traffic sucks, drivers are terrible, roads are confusing. If you want to drive outside of DC, get a rental or a zipcar out in the 'burbs so you don't need to go in and out of the city with it. Mostly worth doing if you want to visit any national parks/forests in the area, but if you're mostly a city person you can keep pretty occupied in DC. If you want some variety, you can also take the train up to Baltimore for a day trip, or rent a car and go up to Annapolis which is a painfully cute little brick-street town about 45min from DC. Aside from Metro, if you like bicycling DC has a great bikeshare system. Tons of racks all over town, and the bikes are functional (albeit more durable than graceful) and there's tons of bike lanes around. You can download the Capital Bikeshare app on your phone, and buy a 1-week pass when you get there, so as you walk out of your hotel you just look at the app and say "oh look, there's a rack with at least two available bikes on the next block, and we can peddle down the Natural History museum and park them at a rack a block away and walk in" (the app shows how many bikes/slots there are at each location). Once you park the bike in a rack, it's no longer your problem so you can wander freely and just use bikes for whatever legs you like, I used it a ton when I lived there. EDIT: Uber is pretty strong in DC, and last I was there the "carpool" option was crazy cheap. I wouldn't mess with the local taxis unless you can't get an Uber; they aren't terrible but aren't great. Also supporting the vote for Black Cat and U Street Music Hall (same neighborhood) and there's good Ethiopian around there. Adams Morgan and Dupont (right by your hotel) have famous bookshops. East H Street has good food and entertainment. Personally I don't find Chinatown that exciting except for people-watching and a few good restaurants (RFD for craft beer, Jaleo for tapas). Churchkey is walking distance from you and is probably the best craft-beer place in town, but it's the living embodiment of "nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded" so try to go at a slow time so you can sample a bunch of small glasses of cool stuff. There are also some really good craft-cocktail places, though I defer to others since I've been gone a year. The National Zoo is kinda small but good quality, can be knocked out in a few hours and is right by the Metro. Aside from the Smithsonian Museums (and you could honestly go to pretty much all of them and be busy for a week) there are a couple really good private art museums too. You can also book a tour at the Pentagon if you find that interesting (if you're not a US citizen you have to book through your embassy). EDIT: the cliche/classic DC/area foods to try: half-smoke (like a bratwurst, chili optional), Ethiopian food, Jamaican food, moules frites (Belgian mussels and fries), chicken wings with "mumbo sauce" (in sketchy neighborhoods), crab cakes (more a Baltimore thing that spills over). Vietnamese food is huge and amazing but mostly in the Virginia suburbs, limited Vietnamese in DC proper. The old-school classic DC drink is a gin rickey (although that's surprisingly uncommon knowledge), and there are now several local breweries for suds. The Smithsonian Museums, you kinda have to triage, and either linger in some and rush through others, or cut out some and spend quality time in others, etc. It's worth trying to plan a little. Personally I like the Hirshhorn (modern art), Sackler/Freer/African complex (museums linked by underground tunnels with Asian and African art), and American Indian museum (which not everyone likes). I'll go against the grain and say that I find the American History museum just so-so (not bad though), Natural History is good but not crazy better than a nat hist museum in any other big city, and Air and Space I just duck into to go to one or two specific exhibits (I love the WWI exhibit), but those three are huge with tourists and full of gits gawking. National Portrait Gallery is open latest, and the portraits are decently cool but they have a wide variety of other stuff rotate through and an amazing interior plaza. TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 18:04 on Mar 27, 2017 |
#
¿
Mar 27, 2017 04:22
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 30, 2024 06:12 |
|