And of course, by posting this right now…I became a statistic
Last Minute DC sightseeing
Thursday was our last day to explore the DC area because we were flying out right after work on Friday.
We hopped on the metro at 6:15pm in Bethesda and made it down to the National Mall area around 6:45pm, so we had about 45 minutes to get into the Air and Space Museum, which was highly recommended by our study participants, and take a look around.
Apollo 11
Oldtime American Airlines aircraft
wouldn't you have loved to fly first class with American in the old days?
The Wright Brothers graciously obliged for a photo
The real Kitty Hawk flyer!
the Spirit of St. Louis-- flown solo by Charles Lindbergh on May 20–21, 1927, on the first non-stop flight from New York to Paris
discussing some important matters--probably about how I can tan my white legs.
After we were shooed out of the National Air and Space Museum as it closed, we trekked a little further towards Capitol Hill. We were too tired to walk to the other side, so we stopped here. It was gorgeous nonetheless.
We checked off most of the big things that we wanted to see during our short stint in the DC metro area. Next time, I’m definitely going to try to check out the Supreme Court, U.S. Mint, National Natural History Museum, Baltimore Aquarium (they have belugas there!), Vietnam War Memorial, Korean War Memorial, and all of the other hundreds of things there are to do.
Eats: What’s a trip to DC without some oysters
Delicious oysters from Black's Bar and Kitchen in Bethesda
While in DC, we were actually working in Bethesda, Maryland. We stayed at a hotel fairly close to the facility and were surrounded by delicious restaurants. I had done some research and found Black’s Bar and Kitchen, about a 10 minute walk from where we were working so we decided to stop by for happy hour one day after work.
I think the pair on the top left are Bay Point oysters? And the ones on the bottom right are Kumamoto.
Spiced jumbo shrimp. 50 cents a piece. I'm really bad at taking pictures before sampling the food, so this picture is minus two shrimp.
We also had a really delicious bowl of mussels called “Addie’s Mussels” at happy hour which was only $6.50 instead of its regular price of $13–and obviously, I forgot to document.
Our favorite breakfast place right next to the facility that we were working in was Booeymonger, a cheap but awesome breakfast and lunch place, where they give you generous portions to the point of where I had to stop getting toast because I couldn’t eat it after I had finished my eggs, bacon and homefries. They even let my coworker, who only wanted a bagel, tack it only my order as the carb instead of my toast.
We decided to try it for lunch on Thursday since they make pretty awesome and unique sandwiches.
1) The Ace - Fresh sliced turkey breast, grilled onions, tomato, melted muenster cheese with Russian dressing and lettuce on a French baguette. 2) a Booey Wrap- Marinated, grilled chicken breast with shredded lettuce, chopped tomatoes and feta cheese wrapped in a spinach tortilla shell. Served with crispy potato wedges. Oh, if we only had more time. My coworker says that the sandwich looks like Banh Mi (a vietnamese sandwich) --I'd have to concur.
I also had my very first Potbelly Sandwich (FINALLY TIFF!).
Potbelly sandwich, with Sweet Leaf tea! The mint and honey is to DIE for.
oh, and some calamari --forgot to take a picture of our seafood loaded pasta. I will get better at this, promise.
To complete this food journal, we also jointly ate 20 wings (lemon pepper and buffalo) and a delicious juicy burger from The Barking Dog , and had many cobb salads and soup from the Daily Grill .
I also got to meet up with my good friend Erinn who lives in the DC area and is doing her residency nearby, and she took me on a little tour of the (posh) Georgetown area and finished off the night with some Indian food in the M street area.
Tip - If you have one, use a AAA card to book hotels. You’ll not only save money, but sometimes they have deals which you can take advantage of. When we checked in to our Hilton Garden Inn, they gave us each $20 to spend at their food pantry on snacks, drinks, candy, travel items.
Who cares about clouds when you have lit monuments at night
The time change has been pretty exhausting since my mind is apparently set on not sleeping before 12 o’clock no matter where i am, but it’s nothing a little nap can’t solve. Luckily for us, the people that we have been running in our study have been great at telling us what to see, and one thing that got across was that the monuments in DC are more gorgeous at night than they are in the daytime. So, after our day of work, we zipped back to the hotel for power naps and then hopped on the metro close to 8pm right before the sun set down to the heart of DC.
It’s my first time in DC and what really amazed me was how ridiculous it is that you can just be walking down a regular street, turn right through a park and BAM there’s the White House.
“reporting from the White House, this is ….” it all looked so normal, just a simple set up, no crowds, so accessible.
Check out that purple/blue sky.
majestic.
World War II memorial, each pillar has the name of a state on it.
should have squatted lower haha
Gorgeous. Lincoln Memorial.
Why, hello Abe!
After a long walking trek, our legs and feet are very much sore, but I must say, it was definitely worth all the sweating and staying out later than we wanted to. Needless to say, we’re probably going to be calling it an early night tonight to recover….well, and to eat oysters. ha!
Holy moly, still in the United States, just on the other coast
So, it has been awhile since I’ve been on a business trip in the states. The last one was Portland, which was fun, but this time my coworker and I are in the DC Metro area of Bethesda—home of the National Institute of Health, Bureau of Health, Association of Occupational Therapy, and according to a lady that came into participate today, “Anything health related, it’s here”.
The weather is definitely a swap from the West Coast sun (though, Berkeley and SF haven’t been ALL that sunny lately). The weatherman said 81% humidity—and I almost stopped in my tracks. I then realized after talking to some locals, that summer is usually 90% humidity, so I guess we lucked out. We’re staying in a pretty awesome area. Our hotel is a 3-5 min walk to the facility that we’re working at, there is a Regal Cinema across the street, many eateries that we’re enjoying, and super close to the Bethesda Metro stop.
It stormed yesterday, so we ended up watching Inception since neither of us had seen it and it definitely was as mind-blowing as everyone has been saying it was. We were both also really pooped since our flight got in Sunday morning at 1am so we didn’t actually get to the hotel until 2am—then stupid me, I scheduled our setting up for 10am, thinking that it was late enough, not realizing that 10am is actually 7am California time. It worked out fine, we were just pretty exhausted, and ended up napping until grabbing dinner at Potbellys before the movie.
We’re hoping to head over to see the monuments tonight, because based on a poll of our study participants, the night view of the monuments trump the daytime view by far. They’re probably right, since it has been really cloudy. Apparently all the museums are free as well! So many things possible, yet so little time! A second trip is definitely needed.
Hopefully some good pictures tonight!
AMC movie coupons & deals
Movies are expensive these days. Yes, some of us remember the days of $2 matinees or when there were student prices everyday, not just Thursdays between certain times.
Ways to save when going to the theatre:
- Bring your own drink & small snack (most theatres don’t check bags really anymore or jackets). Even if you get caught, the cost of losing a can of soda versus having to buy one for $4 is definitely worth it. I usually don’t drink anything in the theater since I’d probably have to go pee at some point during the 2.5 hr feature.
- Get movie passes from Costco or off of eBay. At Costco, AMC Gold Passes (valid for new releases) are $15.99 for 2 tickets which is $8 each, about $2 less than what you would pay at the box office. They also have Regal (United Artists, Edwards) , Cinemark (century) passes as well. Sometimes on eBay you can get even better deals. If you usually watch movies 2 weeks after they are first released, it’s even cheaper. You can usually find Silver AMC passes for around $7 and the other theaters have their equivalents for around the same price. Make sure you use the lower end passes if you’re going to movies that have been out for awhile, that’ll save you some big bucks.
- Besides passes, I’ve also found some movie “coupons” on eBay that let you get tickets to movies that have been out at least 2 weeks for$7.50 at the box office or you can upgrade and see a new release by adding $1.50 more.These are good if you don’t really want to front the money for the passes. You can get coupons for about $1-2 for 12 coupons which allow you to purchase up to 2 tickets each. Here is a link to an auction (Regal) another one (AMC) if you want to check it out.
If you’re planning on heading out to see a movie on Sunday, use the coupon below and treat yourself to some grub during the movie. Click on the image to get the coupon.
(Thanks Patti for this coupon link!)
Also, for those of you who are just chillin’ this summer. $1 movies at AMC Theatres on Tuesdays at 10am!
July 27th – KungFu Panda
Aug 3rd – The Spiderwick Chronicles
Aug 10th – How to Train your Dragon
Click here for more info.
Deposit checks with your iPhone? Lucky Chase and USAA people!
Who thought this day was going to actually come. After reading the USA TODAY article, I still don’t really believe it, and won’t really get a sense of how ridiculously amazing it is until I actually do it.
Essentially, with the JPMorganChase app, you take a picture of the front and back of the check that you want to deposit with your iPhone camera, transmit it to your account and you’re done! A bank called USAA has also offered this to it’s customers:
USAA, which serves members of the military and their families, had a strong incentive to offer the mobile deposit: It has only one branch, located in San Antonio. Customers outside San Antonio can use other banks’ ATMs for cash withdrawals, but in the past, they had to deposit checks by mail….USAA has offered a deposit app since last August. Customers have used it to deposit 1.5 million checks worth more than $900 million, spokesman Paul Berry says.
Apparently, BofA has an app in the works to deposit checks as well, but there is no launch date as of yet.
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