Spring Break brings visions of bikinis and sandy beaches for a school-free getaway, but for me, it was full of history and great food. I spent my break in our nation’s capital as a tourist 2.0, visiting with a local, learning about the best places to eat and visit and the smoothest ways to tour Washington, D.C.
While Spring Break is over, the end of the year is closing in fast and so are preparations for one big trip to kick off the summer. If you’re looking for a place to celebrate either graduation or just another school year ending, check out D.C.
Food
Lincoln’s Waffle Shop
Ford Theater, the location of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, was a site I would have loved to explore, but unfortunately we didn’t book tickets in time. I was, however, able to see its exterior from the charming lunch counter of Lincoln’s Waffle Shop.
Almost every local I spoke to recommended the café and I was able to drown my disappointment of not going on a tour of Ford Theater in delicious blueberry pancakes.
Filomena Ristorante
While a bit out of the general price range of a college student, the great food and accommodating atmosphere at Filomena made the restaurant worth spending a little extra.
We had assorted bruschetta, an appetizer consisting of grilled bread rubbed with garlic and topped with olive oil and salt. The variety of flavors in the dish were perfect for every taste, featuring everything from mushroom herbs to white bean and balsamic vinegar.
For entrées, the menu has a wide variety of options, but the best choice is Filomena’s pasta. Their noodles are hand-made daily by the restaurant’s “pasta-mamas,” in the front window in view of approaching customers. My meal consisted of outstanding pesto and gnocchi, topped with chicken. The pasta’s salty flavor gave it that hand-made kick you can’t find anywhere else and was perfectly complimented by their unbeatable creamy pesto.
What to See
The National Mall is the first thing most people think about when planning a trip to our nation’s capitol, making it constantly crowded with tourists. But my local guide knew the perfect solution to beat this: bikes.
Rent from the local bike-share, which allows you to cover all of the monuments in one night. This is harder to do on foot because all of the memorials, from the Lincoln to the newly dedicated Martin Luther King Jr. memorial, are so far away from one another.
Other less known but equally amazing attractions include the National Portrait Gallery, full of history and all styles of art, and the Smithsonian National Zoological Park.
The D.C. zoo is unique, currently because of its baby panda exhibit, but also because of their awesome orangutan shows. The zoo provides “catwalks” for the apes above the sidewalks of the zoo, and does demonstrations in which food is hidden throughout a primate’s habitat, to showcase the intelligence of the animals.
Capitol Tour
If you are looking to get a tour of our nation’s capitol building, do not go through a general tour. Instead, contact the office of one of Utah’s senators and their office will provide a much less hectic tour with one of their interns. Our guide was Ben Bartholomew, an intern from the Hinckley Institute of Politics working in Orrin Hatch’s (R-Utah) office.
The Newseum
This recently constructed museum focuses entirely on historical news production. The exhibits within include a section of the Berlin Wall, a 9/11 memorial and a gallery of every Pulitzer Prize winner’s photograph. Every day the museum displays the front page of newspapers from all 50 states out front, including that of the U’s very own Utah Chronicle.
The Newseum is one of the most powerful exhibitions I’ve ever seen, and I highly recommend putting it on your D.C. bucket list.