Day 4 - National Zoo and American History Museum

On day four we headed out to the zoo.  We knew it didn't open until ten but we headed out early because we had to get on the Metro to get there and we weren't sure how long that might take.  Thankfully the closest Metro station was across the street from our hotel.  None of us had ever been on a subway so we were all looking forward to the experience.  We road the escalator down into the tunnel.  I was very surprised to find it clean and easy to navigate.  I took pictures of Liberty with the train in the background and was immediately approached by a security officer who made sure I wasn't a terriorist and then forced me to delete my pictures.  This caught me completely off guard, but I did as she asked and made sure I didn't take any pictures in the subway station for the rest of our trip.  The Metro was surpisingly easy to navigate and within 10 minutes we arrived at the Metro station closest to the zoo.  It was about another 1/2 mile walk to get there.  We arrived about 9 and we walked straight in.

This is the Metro across from our hotel.

While we were on the Metro we got a tip from a local to start at the bottom of the zoo and work our way back up.  The zoo literally sits on top of a giant hill.  Not the type of hills you see in Oklahoma, but a small mountain.  The lady on the train said its better to walk straight to the bottom and work our way back up instead of climbling the big hill at the end of the day when we are so tired.  When we got there, there were very few people.  However, by the time we made it to the bottom of this rather long incline and started back up, people were pouring in.  It got so crowded that it was difficult to see the most popular exhibits.  We realized fairly quickly that we had wasted too much time early on while there weren't so many people.  We barely squeezed through the crowd to catch a glimpse of the giant pandas.  Liberty was tired by the time we made it back up the hill and she was ready to go.  Scott and I didn't feel like hanging around any longer either.  We headed back to the Metro and then back to our hotel.

Liberty loves maps.  Once we got to the bottom, she had to plan our trip back up.

This picture was taken inside the Metro station with my iPhone.  I avoided security this time =)

I planned lots of time in between activities for the girls to rest.  I knew that it would be pointless to push them too hard.  We rested for about two hours and then headed over to the American History Museum.  This museum wasn't part of our scheduled activities, but we decided to go there instead of the aquarium.  I could have spent and entire day in there.  There greatest thing, of course, was seeing the flag that Francis Scott Key wrote the "Star Spangled Banner" about.  The ACTUAL flag!  It was awesome. There were other cool things like Abraham Lincoln's top hat and Dorothy's ruby slippers.  Liberty was excited when we stumbled across C3P0.  It was definitely a highlight for all of us.