Stella, May I know how you do the Natural History Museum in under 20 minutes?

Of course you may, but first of all be prepared to do some fast walking! (If you saw Monday's post, this a non-moving brother to the Fennec Fox that wouldn't face me for a picture.)
Second of all, don't be put off by the long lines. They move pretty fast (less than 5 minutes when both lines were down the steps and almost to the end of the building), but if you aren't carrying any bags or purses, you can actually skip the line and head right up to security! Thirdly, this isn't a guide to see absolutely everything in the museum. It's a guide to see the highlights (especially when you only have twenty minutes before your lunch reservations!).
Once you head in, the first thing you will see is the giant African elephant and right next to it is the Information desk. Grab a map and find yourself in it. If you are Joey, then place the map on the ground and step into the the Rotunda.
Facing the direction you came in, make a left turn and see the mammals. This is a huge exhibition of so many mammals. For us: it was like a preview of what's to come when we went to the zoo later that day. 
This is not the order to see the mammal animals as I don't remember the order that we saw them in. Just make a general circle around and make sure you hit up your favorite animals. The mammal exhibit is placed by where you would find the animals. The cheetah animal you see above is based in Africa, so you would find them in the Africa section.
To make sure you see all of the sections start with Africa. (Africa is the section you start with anyways as it is the first one you see.) 
Then turn left to Australia (where the above platypus is located), and continue down until you see South American mammals. 
Then make a right and you should see the Family section. In the Family Section, you will find the your earliest mammal ancestors: like the orangutan. 
After the Family Section, you will want to finish off the Mammals with the North American section 
Then head down the Iceland Revealed exhibit and enter the Ocean Hall.
As you enjoy this hall make sure you keep to one direction and keep walking towards the back of the hall. Let this whale be your guide and head towards its tail. 
 Don't miss the giant 2 year old squid. I didn't take a picture, but look for the live coral reef too!
When you reach the end of the hall you should see some stairs. Take them up to the second floor.
You will then be greeted by the end of the special exhibit currently showing. At the time we went, it was the 20th Anniversary Nature's Best Photography Awards. So the picture you see above, it's a picture of a picture.
Going backwards through the photography exhibit isn't ideal, but its the best way to make it to the Hope Diamond. If this is the exhibit you just have to see, make sure you check the schedule. They are renovating soon and will only be open to pubic Fridays and weekends. 
The display rotates around so you just have to get to the front and wait for it to spin for you to get a full view of the diamond. That blue color was stunning! 
After the Hope Diamond, turn right or left and you should see the rest of the National Gem Collection. (this is starting from the right of the Hope Diamond)
Dom Pedro Aquamarine, the world’s largest faceted aquamarine gem.
The GIANT crystal ball. 
This collection was the one that took up the longest time. It was just so fascinating to me. If you still had time after this I would head across the hall to the Live Butterfly Pavilion. We went on a particularly busy weekend so tickets were out, but it did look really cool! 

And that's twenty minutes! I wouldn't suggest doing this unless you were really trying to cram your day with all the museums as there were so many other things we didn't see. (Dinosaurs, mummies, T.rex skull!, and the Mud Masons of Mali.) 

links: Natural History Museum map
Guides, photodiary, Silly,
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Stella, May I know how was the best crab cake in DC?

As you know from my day trip post on Monday, we had lunch at the historic Old Ebbitt Grill. I fully recommend booking a reservation beforehand. The wait when we got there for ours? 2½ hours for a table for two! It was 2PM.  It's a fairly big restaurant too! Alternatively, they also serve their full menu at the bar.
Brunch Menu
Since it was Saturday, they were serving brunch. Old Ebbitt Grill is said to be the Washington's oldest bar and restaurant. (It has been relocated, so the current location isn't the original one.) The interior of the place brings you back in time. There are mahogany walls and a mahogany bar. The ceilings were covered in murals. The booths were green leather and etched glass separated the tables. It was dim inside, so pictures turned out terrible. but I did take pictures of my food! Also, as it is so close to the White House, celebrities and Secret Service/White House personnel supposedly frequent here. Sadly, we didn't see any or rather I don't think I saw any.
They say they have the best crab cakes, but it was only offered as an Eggs Benedict option on the brunch menu. (They swap out the traditional Canadian Bacon and English muffin with a crab cake.) But I asked our waiter and she said they were able to make me the Crab Cake Entree (single) for me and that's what you see above. They also have it as a double (two cakes) or à la carte. The crab cake sits atop some quinoa, watercress, and snap peas and all drizzled with some lemon aioli. It was a pretty tasty crab cake and the cake was full of crab too! It was flaky and not at all dry. I think it would have been good alone without the rest of the entree items, but they did add the freshness and brightness to the dish. Overall, I would recommend it, but I don't think it would be worth a two hour wait. Get it at the bar to go, and enjoy it at the National Mall.
Oyster Menu
It's also known for their oysters. Go during happy hour and get them half off! We indulged and got two of each kind they offered that day. They weren't shucked very well as we got shell pieces inside the shell and some of them were not "slide ready," but they were fresh. There were also lots of choices for toppings.
Generally, the seafood here came highly recommended. But I would come back for the atmosphere/environment. It was such a nice place to eat and I didn't mention it yet, but the service was superb.
links: Old Ebbitt Grill reservations
Restaurants, Travel
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Stella, May I know how you keep your hair so smooth?

For today's Tutorial Tuesday, I will be continuing my love for vinegar and introduce you to a vinegar hair rinse. Essentially, I like to rinse my hair with vinegar. It makes my hair smoother, softer and cleaner. The acid in vinegar removes the excess buildup on your scalp and seals the cuticles on your hair. I have been doing this once every two weeks for about 6 months now and every time I do a rinse I just want to keep touching my hair. It's just so soft! Mister has even tried it, and he likes it too! The best thing about this rinse is that it so simple and cheap to make. You probably already have everything to make it today!
The condition of the hair cuticle is what makes the difference between a good hair day and a bad hair day. For me it's the difference between spending one minute just brushing my hair to spending 10 minutes adding products and trying to tszuj it better. The hair cuticle is like the bark on a tree. It's the outer coat to your hair. The coat is lain like shingles on a roof. They are overlapping layers that lie along each strand of your hair. When these layers are are unbroken and lay flat along the hair core, your hair is smooth. When they are damaged and stick up like broken shingles on a roof, your hair appears frizzy. That't kind of the basic structure of your hair strand and the vinegar comes and seals these shingles flat.

Depending on the oiliness of your hair you will want to use more or less vinegar. The more vinegar, the stronger the rinse will be. Don't be worried that your head will smell like salad dressing for the day, the smell will disappear shortly after. I like to use a 1:4 vinegar to water solution. This is on the stronger side. My hair produces oil like no other so I like more vinegar. If you have drier hair, start with less vinegar.

All I do is after I shampoo my hair, I start pouring the vinegar and water combination on my hair. I start along the hair line and slowly pour it all over my scalp. I like to use the pourer as a nozzle and really direct it to the scalp. Then I apply my conditioner to the ends of my hair and let it sit for 30-60 seconds. Normally I like to wash my body during the time and then rinse out my hair and body at the end. When I start rinsing the hair, I will have already noticed a difference in my hair texture. But once your hair dries you will just not stop touching your hair! The smoother my hair is the less tangles I have too!

I like to make a bottle and leave it in the shower. I just used some bottles we have laying around and plop on a pourer.  I found these liquid pourers at the bar/kitchen accessories section of the store. (The red one is a condiment dispenser!)

To make the vinegar hair rinse:
  • Pour 1-4 tablespoons of vinegar into a bottle. 
  • Add in 1 cup of water. 
  • Mix and you are ready to use! 
To make it a little fancy you can:
  • add essential oils or steep the water in some herbs. (Be careful though! Some essential oils might be harmful, especially when applied directly on your skin)
  • use apple cider vinegar (ACV contains extra nutrients and is slightly better smelling) 
  • keep it in the fridge and have an invigorating hair rinse
This post is kind of out of place for DC week, but it is Tutorial Tuesday and this was the first thing I made when we came back. It just made my hair feel new again and cleaned out all the dirt and grime from the long car journey. Come back tomorrow for the continuation of DC week!
Beauty, DIY, Tutorial Tuesdays
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Stella, May I know how you spent one crowded day at Washington, DC?

There's something real patriotic about going to the nation's capital, isn't there? Even when I was fighting a cold and we decided last minute to drive here, it was worth it. Our plan for catching the cherry blossoms this year? Drive 10 hours, see cherry blossoms, visit other DC sights, and drive 10 hours back. Sounds  a little crazy, but me and Mister are somewhat comfortable driving longer periods (we have driven cross country twice last year!). We were supposed to depart Atlanta by 10PM to arrive at DC before sunrise. That way we can be comfortably seating in the park and watching the sunrise. However we didn't leave until almost 11PM and we saw the sun rise as we got to Arlington, Virginia.
Before we even the crossed the George Washington Bridge and arrived at the National Mall, we could see the day was going to be crowded with people. I researched that it would be the smarter choice to park elsewhere and ride the metro in. One the the cheapest places to park in the city for the whole day? Union Station. But when we got there, there were no signs of a parking garage. It's probably the way we drove there and we somehow missed the garage. I decided to just brave the crowds find street parking (limit two hours) and repark the car afterwards. There is free street parking on Ohio Street. When we got there, it was quite full. If you are crossing the bridge, the street that runs along the Potomac is Ohio Street. Somehow I saw a parking lot and people were leaving. It was a free parking lot! Not only free, but free until 1AM! It's located near the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, under the bridge. It was labeled as cherry blossom parking. That is my biggest tip for parking if you do come during the cherry blossom peak bloom time. In hindsight it also would have been a good idea to park in Arlington and walk across the bridge.
We parked, changed to walking shoes, packed up some snacks and walked to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial.
 View from the Jefferson memorial.
 Then we walked over to the Washington Monument. The entire walk so far was filled with cherry blossom trees!
Reflection pool and Lincoln Memorial. It was a good day to just sit on the green and enjoy the weather.
From there we continued around the National Mall to the White House. This is the view from the North Lawn. This is also the best unobstructed view of it. I knew that the closest you can get it the bars you see behind that kind security guard (who moved over slightly for my picture). However the day we went, security was extra tight and they added this extra fencing that makes it even harder to take a good picture in front of the White House. Did you know in order to tour the White House, you have to put in a request with your local Congressman? (or embassy, if you are International)
This is the US Department of Treasury. Right next to the White House.
We were a little early for lunch so we stopped by the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, but I think I'll post about that later this week as this is getting to be a fairly long post. As far as scheduling goes: After the White house, we wandered over to the Smithsonian side of the National Mall and picked a museum! If you were to also do DC in a day, I would suggest going to lunch or having a packed lunch on the greens in the mall. There were also a lot of food trucks parked along the Smithsonian row of museums. It would be nice to have lunch there and head into the museums. (Don't bring your lunch in though! No food is allowed in the museums, have lunch then head in.)
After lunch we had lunch we ubered our way to the zoo. Since it was also a Smithsonian Institute, it's also free! I had planned to take the metro there, but by now we walked a lot and even though we just had lunch we were not up for taking a 30 minute journey on the buses. It also turned out that taking an Uber was more economical! Who knew it would be cheaper, faster, and more comfortable to take an Uber?
 There are two entrances to the Smithsonian National Zoological Park. Either side is good, but the Connecticut Ave NW entrance leads you right to the pandas. Sadly the building was closed (it closed at 6PM) by the time we got there and we didn't get to see the baby panda. I was looking forward to seeing pandas. We even contemplated staying the night and coming back in the morning! We didn't do that, instead we wanted to see Oswald and Popcorn more. We left them at home for this short trip as they would have no where to stay as we wandered DC. This is the empty home of the pandas.
 We did see some Asian Elephants. They are much smaller than you think. It's kinda crazy to think elephants are smaller than you imagine.
 Fennec Fox turned away from the camera. This is the little creature is Nick's hustling partner in Zootopia!
 This strange mammal is a Greater Malayan Chevrotain. That's a mouse-deer! It's like a weird hybrid of mouse and deer.
 Anteater. #zotzot
 Alligator
This tiger was the last things we saw and it was howling! The sound he makes is so unusual and deep. If you hear it, you wouldn't believe it came from a tiger. I've also just realized that prior to this visit I would not know how to describe what sound a tiger makes.

After the exciting, yet slightly disappointing time at the zoo, we marched our way to the Meridian Hill Park for the sunset. This is walk is full of hills, so be prepared. It wasn't all bad though, we did get to see a lot of different embassies on the walk over. Even though it's not Embassy Row, there was still some prominent countries here.  Apparently I'm all about the sun and setting our location for the best place to view it. This place would have been great but the water wasn't running. From the pictures, I thought I would be standing in a beautiful cascading water feature, but I'm not. You should just google the pictures of this place.
I would be standing in water. The park is still nice place to go to, just disappointed the fountains aren't running. The natives call it "Malcolm X Park" and on Sundays they have a drum circle!
We then walked our way to DC's famous Ben's. Another Washington landmark restaurant. It's said to have the best chili dogs, half smokes, and milk shakes. This was supposed to be our last stop before we started heading out of the city, but we were getting hungry and it was less than a mile from the park. Ben's is opened late into the night, so  this was the place to fill up before we hit the road. Instead we cut out visiting Georgetown and had dinner here instead.
Cooking up lots of hot dogs.
Selection of cakes. 
The place is also frequented by lots of celebrities.
Original Chili Half-smoke order. It comes with a quarter-pound half pork, half been smoked sausage topped with mustard, onions, and spicy chili along with Utz chips.
Strawberry milkshake 
The food was okay. It definitely filled out hungry tummies.
Then we ubered our way back to the National Mall. Again much cheaper and way more convenient.
We still needed to complete the circle of the National Mall. So first off, Lincoln Memorial. By now it's like 9PM and as you can see there was still a ton of people!
 View from the top of the steps at Lincoln Memorial. By this point we were starting to feel a little tired, but just look at the view of the Washington Memorial and Refection Pool!
 We also stopped by the War Memorials before we headed back to the Tidal Basin. This is the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial. It's a little more dramatic at night, don't you think?
Cherry blossoms at night. (although because of the city light pollution, it doesn't really look like nighttime.) There was no one here now. It is such a contrast to when we arrived. The cherry blossoms don't look as nice, but it's still a sight to see all the blooms along the Tidal Basin. Then we returned back to the car and was relieved that it wasn't ticketed or booted.
Before we headed back south, we drove over to see the Marine War Corps Memorial. Then we started back home and to our luck we drove right into a storm! That made the ten-hour journey twelve hours. It did however keep me up and alert for the drive. It was a good thing we didn't stay the night at DC, as it would have been a rainy, dreary day. It was also going to be Easter Sunday, so there was going to be even more people in the city. I feel so bad for the White House Easter Egg Roll, but not so bad that by the time that event started we were home and warm and sound asleep!
Even though DC was crowded everywhere, we got to do almost everything we wanted. Here is an itinerary for a day trip to DC: Start at Jefferson Memorial. Walk to Washington Memorial and White House. Visit the Smithsonian museums. Lunch at Old Ebbitt Grill. Visit the National Zoo. (shop around Georgetown!) Sunset at Meridian Hill Park. Dinner at Ben's Chili Bowl. Return to the National Mall. Visit Lincoln Memorial. WWII Memorial. MLK memorial. Cherry Blossoms at night. Marine Corps War Memorial.
If we were to do it all over again, I would remember to grab some coffee and breakfast for the morning walk around the mall and really enjoy the sights. I would also reserve some paddle boats! I would also try to squeeze in visiting Georgetown and the Eastern Market. This all means we are to return to DC someday! Come back Wednesday for the Old Ebbitt Grill post and Thursday to see how we managed to do the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in twenty minutes!
links: National Mall Zoo Meridian Hill Park Ben's Chili Bowl
photodiary, Restaurants, Travel
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Stella, May I know where you saw the cherry blossoms this year?

Well I can't say that I have been to all the places cherry blossoms exist, but I can say the cherry blossoms at Washington, D.C's Tidal Basin were spectacular. Me and Mister drove the nearly 10 hour journey to see them and they did not disappoint! Cherry blossoms don't stay in bloom for very long and it's all kind of a mystery of when they will actually bloom. This year I was staying on top of tracking the forecasts and making sure we weren't going to miss it. Even though they came early this year (over two weeks earlier than last year), our schedules were clear and we got to see them.
Cherry blossoms are fickle. They reach peak bloom (which means that over 70 percent of the flowers are fully bloomed) and then they quickly turn from white to pink and start sprouting green leaves. Peak bloom happened on Friday, March 25. The two days before and after are also pretty good days to see the blooms, but depending on weather who knows if all the petals will be all on the ground. So if this peak bloom had happened on say a Monday, Me and Mister would have missed it this season.
And since this year happened the weekend of Easter it was packed. Well I hear it is packed every year, but look at the massive amounts of people on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial! This month has been all about the presidents: first Jackson's Hermitage in Nashville and this week the National Mall will all these memorials and monuments! This picture was taken right after they opened the paddle boats, so you only see one. But imagine the rest of the basin to be filled with paddle boats. They even had swan paddle boats! It really reminds me of the swan pool floats that became so popular last year.
 Inside the Jefferson Memorial.
The cherry blossom trees are planted all along the entire Tidal Basin. There's the Washington Monument behind me. You will have to excuse my outfit, it was in the 60s and I had just come down with a cold. But look at the clear skies and the sun! By the time we left Washington, which was just 12 hours later (yes, it was an incredibly short trip), it was pouring rain and made the drive back slow.
 This isn't a cherry blossom, but I wanted to show you that there are other blooms in the area! This is also not a tulip, but there are tulips blooming at the Floral Library. Which reminds me the National Park Service rangers were everywhere and they are so helpful! They were giving out maps and answering any questions I had. If you see them, I would thank them for their services and ask them questions!
If you missed the cherry blossoms this year, I have some tips to help you catch them next year. First, be prepared for the crowds. That means driving there and parking will be a nightmare and your best bet is to take the Metro to the station (Smithsonian stop). If you do get there early, there is free parking on Ohio Street. Second, take lots of pictures! There were no bad angles and at every moment people were taking pictures. That would probably add to the slow moving people there, but I say enjoy it. It's only once a year! Third, if the crowds at the National Mall are not your cup of tea, then see the cherry blossoms at Kenwood in nearby Bethesda, Maryland. But I would say you need to experience this at least once in your life!
This experience has made me look into other cherry blossoms and boy are there a lot! I mean obviously Japan would be filled with them and they are a very big deal there. Cherry blossoms symbolizes the ephemeral nature of life. It makes me think we have to cherish life to the fullest! Besides Japan, cherry blossoms are also planted in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, South Korea, and Turkey. But here in the United States, you can also find them everywhere. It took me until this year to realize the beautiful tree on my neighbor's lawn was a cherry blossom tree! But what surprised me the most was that the largest group of cherry blossoms are actually in Macon! Macon has over 300,000 trees planted (for reference DC has about 3,000.) and is home to the International Cherry Blossom Festival. I think we may have missed the peak bloom for that festival this year, but it will certainly be in the books for next year! It would certainly be a much shorter drive.
Come back next week for what else we did on our short day trip to DC!
links: National Mall Floral Library Kenwood International Cherry Blossom Festival
Fiddle-Faddle Fridays, photodiary, Travel
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