Holy Road Blocks, Batman!

We woke up late this morning. After a bit of a lie-in and a short chat with our friends, we walked along the canal towards Georgetown.

We made our way to the Patagonia store--across the street from DC's bike share! Along the way, we came across a fancy food place called Dean and Deluca that makes irresistible foods for a LOT of money. We had lunch there before continuing to the Bike Share station.

The bike share is sponsored by the city and allows users to pay a minimal amount of money to pick up a bike, then deliver it to another location for another person to use.

We rode them down to the Lincoln Memorial and parked the bikes in a bike share drop-off point .

We then walked around the Lincoln Memorial,  the WW2 memorial, the National Mall, the Washington Monument and the White House. We were both amazed at how small the house really was!

We then found our way back to our friends' home by city bus--the D6--to get ready for an evening with an old friend of L's from her days in TV news.

We met the friends at Ankara, an "upscale casual" restaurant that served Turkish delights. L's friend's husband is an ex-member of the US House of Representatives and kindly took us on a night-time tour of the Capital building. We traveled there via the Metro system and saw the House of Representatives and looked out over the lighted political buildings around DC. We also saw the old Senate chamber and the old Supreme Court (before it separated to another building).

 This is the absolute centre of the Capitol building.

This is the old Supreme Court--it was meant to be temporary but was used as the Supreme Court for 135 years.

The old Senate room--it has since been moved to another wing.

 The Library of Congress used to be in the Capitol building.

The Capitol is under construction, inside...

...and out. But what a great way to see inside the centre of power in DC.

As we rode home on the city bus, we were diverted due to a road block--the third one of the day. They seem to sprout up without notice--anytime a dignitary needed to move about the city.