Our Weekend Getaway

My hubby and I went away this past weekend with our good friends, Tim and Valerie. Its been so long since I've been to D.C. even though we live an hour and a half away, its been several years. We really wanted to go down to see the Terra Cotta Soldiers that were found in China buried. Very fascinating. If you Googled it you'll find more information on it. But little did we know, that it is suggested you purchase your tickets online before coming. Why? They sold out!! So we couldn't get in. If I remember, they were sold out until January. So we need to get back down there because it ends in March. But I took pictures, from a poster....LOL. We read a little on the history of these soldiers, but I need to go back online and read a little more.

In the meantime, we went to the other museums and toured around. We entered into the Stone gallery, I wouldn't mind a piece of jewelry out of every one of these stones! A girl can only dream, huh? They had some gorgeous pieces of jewelry but I couldn't take any pictures because there were people hogging up the areas.....sheesh!

But what I REALLY wanted to see was, Julia Child's kitchen!!!! Here's her certificate for Le Cordon Bleu:

Now, her kitchen. Taking pictures was very difficult, since the kitchen is encased in glass, so it was frustrating. I took a ton of pictures in different settings, and I got these. I was trying not to be like the others who would hog up the areas for pictures so I was trying to be quick. Sorry for the stinky pictures:

She had a place for everything. So organized and took such good care of her appliances and her wares:

Look at her knife collection:

Then some history of her, it was fun. They had all of her cookbooks there, plus her own collection of cookbooks she kept for herself.

As we continued through the museum, we came to this gallery, "Within these Walls" I think it was called. They have a real house in the museum that is over 200 years old. I now can't remember the whole story, but I do remember that this house has been lived in for 200 years by different families.:

Then on our way to our hotel, I saw this building and I just liked the architecture of it,

We then went to see the mammals. Sometimes I have mixed feelings about this area because I'm not sure how many of these animals are real and are not. You can tell which ones aren't but not too sure about the others. I am an animal lover and do not like the idea of killing animals in order to stuff them and place them behind glass, especially when some of them are just wee little babies. There were some fascinating animals in this area, some I have never seened. Like this elephant, imagine him running towards you??!!!! I would faint.

And this one, well, he's just a bad kitty!! This is something my kitty once did when he got outside, I managed to get the poor little birdie out of his mouth by holding the extra skin at the back of his neck and telling him to drop the bird NOW!! He did, and I picked up the poor fellow and took him away somewhere safe. He got his bearings and flew away. But I have a feeling that wouldn't of worked with this cat.

As we walked around the museum we came to the door and saw that it was snowing out. You can't see it here, but it was, and it was beautiful.

This is taken in one of the train stations, there was shopping and restaurants inside this place. It was so pretty.

And after walking all over the city in the snow, then rain, we came to this wonderful Irish Pub. It brought back memories of London. We ate at a local pub in London just about every night, and when we entered this place I thought we were back there again. The atmosphere was great and the food was wonderful.

We had a nice time and plan to go back soon to see the Terra Cotta Soldiers and probably go back to the pub again. It was a short weekend but relaxing. Now back to work.