As I am obviously still in the mood to reminisce about some of my unforgettable trips, I thought of sharing a lil bit about my recent 2-week trip to the US, covering 3 major cities - Washington DC, New York City, and the ever magnificent Chicago, yay! The trip was in May 2011, and I will first start with my DC trip, and share with you some of the places I visit & what I enjoyed most during my stay.
I am very thankful & fortunate that my job allows me opportunities to visit lands and places which I never thought I would be able to visit until I am probably old & wrinkled :) This was actually my 3rd visit to the US, and my second time to DC and NYC. I will not dwell so much on details of what I do for my work, suffice to say that i was extremely pleased with the hotel where we stayed - the Omni Shoreham Hotel (http://www.omnihotels.com/findahotel/washingtondcshoreham). The Omni was a mere walking distance from the Marriot Wardman, where the conference is held. Omni was fantastic! I got a 'corner' room, which surprisingly included a treadmill - solving all my anxiety about not having the time to visit the gym. And i actually DID manage to visit the gym later on, was really impressed with the equipments, and spent some time doing some lightweights and cardio on the EFX.
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| check it out! i actually ran on this for the whole week i stayed here! |
And if there's one thing I’m really happy about being in the US, is the fact that STARBUCKS is everywhere! There's a little cafe near the lobby which serves Starbucks lattes, and I was a happy person every morning as made my way to Marriot as i sipped hot my caramel latte.
A week in DC gave me some time to do some shopping at the premium factory outlets - the Potomack Mills Woodbridge (http://www.simon.com/mall) & Leesburg Corner (http://www.premiumoutlets.com/outlets/outlet) - and nearly broke my arms lugging the many shopping bags. Got myself a pair of super beautiful UGGs! – am absolutely ecstatic! I absolutely have no idea where or when i will actually wear the UGGs, but hey it doesn't matter, what's important is that I got myself a pair and that has made my life partially complete (fashion-wise!).
During the stay I also managed to visit some interesting historical monuments in DC, including the World War 2 Memorial, US Capitol Building, Washington Monument, Vietnam Memorial, The Lincoln Memorial, The Thomas Jefferson Memorial, and managed to find a spot to grab a picture with The White House in the background – thanks to a tour arranged by one of our business partners.
And oh, I must share with you this really great restaurant called The Kinkead’s, located at the Pennsylvania Avenue, NW (http://www.kinkead.com/). The house specialty – a super delicious crabcake dish – was absolutely heavenly! If any of you ever happened to stroll down Pennsylvania Avenue & and feeling famished - do stop by The Kinkead’s and order the dish, and savor the delectable taste of yummy seafood (I am literally salivating now!).
Best of all I also managed to made a quick lightning visit to the Newseum (http://www.newseum.org/) - and it was absolutely fantastic! There were floors of newsreels and press shots, press articles going back all the way to the 19th century! There were original press cuts on the sinking of the Titanic (1912), the fall of the Berlin Wall that used to separate the Germans (1989), the assassination of JFK (1963), the death of Princess Diana (1997), the 9-11 tragedy (2001), and of course the latest was on the death news of Osama bin Laden (2011). There were also some remnants of the news satellite that used to be on top of the World Trade Center building which was destroyed during the 9-11 tragedy - on display; and also 4 original blocks taken from the fallen Berlin Wall which the Newseum obtained the rights to keep, also on display. All in all I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to the Newseum – and I bought this really cool book, a collection of Pulitzer Prize photographs (produced by the Newseum itself) ; before I skipped my way out to continue strolling down the streets and people-watching.
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| am gonna add this to my endless book collections! |
I stayed for a week in DC, had my fair share of halal food (which mostly includes kebabs, Japanese, seafood..and more seafood), enjoyed my room at the Omni and it’s huge, luscious bed, and did enough shopping to make me eat instant noodles for the next 5 years. But hey…the journey wasn’t over yet. Coz me & my friends were due to visit the ever hip & happening NYC!!
I’ll tell you more about it in my next post..stay tuned!
