Washington, DC (Days 3 & 4)
a much belated recap of the second half of our trip to the capital in June 2023 -- you can read the first half here ! one of the definite highlights of the trip was a private tour of the US Capitol building on Monday morning, arranged for us by a very thoughtful friend who is a political consultant. the girls were grumbling about wearing dresses "because it's not church" but I was so glad that we held firm (not that they were wearing anything fancy -- we failed to bring any dress shoes so they were wearing their pool slides! but still, it helped to foster a fitting sense of respect for the occasion). we headed out from the Airbnb and down the street to catch our bus, just in time to see it fly past the stop. thankfully, another bus followed shortly after. I had purchased metro cards prior to our trip, each pre-loaded with $8, and it was so nice to just be able to scan them on the bus without worrying about it ahead of time. we also had flashbacks to our time in Rome as w