Washington D.C. Trip- Hyatt Regency & Walking around in a Snow Storm

Mar 19

At the beginning of the month I attended a conference in Washington DC. and I stayed at the Hyatt Regency hotel near Penn Station. I love Washington DC! So I am very excited to be sharing my little week long adventure with you all.

The Hotel:
The Hyatt Regency hotel is a couple of blocks away from Penn Station which was nice because I took the train in and I was able to walk from the station to the hotel. It' also really close to the U.S. Capitol which is pretty neat.

View directly outside of the Hotel

The not-so nice part is that it's far away from pretty much everything else. Even though Washington is a relatively small city, it has clusters like every other major city. This particular part of town is pretty much empty by 7:00 pm and there's no restaurants nearby so I had to either walk, take the cab or the metro to get to the neighborhood where there are food like Chinatown.

View from Hotel Room

My room was a double queen bed that had pretty much everything you'd expect from a standard hotel room. It was very clean and neat and had all the essentials for someone who has to stay there for a week long conference.

Hotel room in the 8th Floor of Hyatt Regency

I was quiet surprised by the minimal/lack of bedspread. It had a very thin blanket and a bed sheet which was strange for me considering that it is a Hyatt. The blanket was very similar to the one I had at Pod Hotel which is not a really good comparison. Other than that, it was quiet comfortable.

Bathroom

The bathroom is a decent size. It came with really nice toiletries products for sensitive skin which was a bonus. The other weird part about this hotel room is that there's only two mirrors in the whole room, one in the bathroom and one full mirror (you can see on the reflection) on the hallway on the way to the door. Since I had to share this room with another girl, it was quiet difficult trying to get our hair and make up done with the bathroom mirror since there's no outlet near the full length mirror. It's not a really complain but an inconvenience in a double bed room.

The hotel staff were very accommodating with our needs, they were very nice and helpful.

I would give this hotel a B, it's a nice hotel but it's far away from everything else. I like to walk around when I'm in Washington and usually if I'm at the Embassy Suite it would take me about 20-30 minutes to walk to the Lincoln Monument, it took me about an hour from this location. It's far from restaurants and there's really no place you can go to that are open at night.

The Experience

I arrived on a beautiful Saturday morning a couple of days before a huge snow storm hit the area. While waiting for a friend flying in from the Mid-West who was delayed because of said storm, I was able to walk around and take in the gorgeous sunny weather. I took a quick walk around the U.S. Capitol before grabbing a quick lunch.

In front off the U.S. Capitol

Capitol Reflecting Pool

Obligatory 'Selfie'

Since there was not a lot of food option, I went to the Starbucks across the street and for the first time in my many years as a Starbucks customer I tried their salad. I had the Chicken and greens caesar salad with a venti Iced Tea. It was surprisingly very good. It had really fresh ingredients, sauteed kale and big chunks of Parmesan cheese.

Chicken & greens caesar with Iced Tea!

Now let's talk food... while at the conference we were pretty much fed round the clock. My day usually start at around 6:00 am. My friends and I would have breakfast everyday at Starbucks and then we would eat lunch and dinner that were provided by the conference. By the third day all the food looks the same so I'm just going to share with you one picture of what my lunch/dinner look like- there's usually some salad, antipasti, vegetable sides, a roll, and then a couple of protein choices (chicken, salmon or steak). For this particular lunch we were also served minestrone soup.

Lunch

For one of the night, my friends and I ended up going to Fado Irish Pub & Restaurant in Chinatown. It's my favorite pub in the city because they have really good food and drinks. And then on a different night we ended at Country Hill Barbeque Market where they actually had a live country band and swing dancing so that was definitely interesting.

Live Music at Country Hill and Malibu & Coke at Fado Irish Pub & Restaurant

For most of the conference, I had to wear suits or business dresses but on one of the day we were able to dressed pretty casual and this was probably my favorite outfit of the week. As you can see I was also wearing flats, this was the day before the big storm. So I was very happy that I was able to wear my flats because I pretty much wore my boots for the rest of the week.

Favorite outfit!

The conference still went on even though D.C. declared state of emergency. I've never been in town when there was a snow emergency and it is pretty scary. It was like walking through a ghost town and very little businesses were open. Usually in Philadelphia, the snow storm may shut down the city but the restaurants and stores/mall are usually open. Because most people in D.C. live outside of the city, many businesses were unfortunately close until about 2:00 pm in the afternoon. Since my friend from the mid-west rarely come to D.C. (and we both came from a state that got an enormous amount of snow this past winter) this snow storm won't shut us in the hotel. Here are a few pictures of DC during and after the storm.

View from Hotel

Smithsonian Castle

Washington Monument

U.S. Capitol

Favorite Photo EVER!!!

Snow Selfie...

View from the Library of Congress

I had such an incredible experience in D.C. catching up with old friend and meeting new ones. It was such a lovely time to spend some time in the nation's capitol even during a snow emergency.

I ended up having an additional adventure on the train back to Philadelphia. I've taken the Amtrak from Philadelphia to D.C. ever since I was 16. I've lost count on how many times I've been on the train. It is the fastest way to get to D.C. and the most reliable. But on this one fateful night, I ended up being stranded on the Baltimore station for about 3 hours. I left D.C. Penn Station at 5:00 pm and was supposed to arrive at Philadelphia 30th by 7:00 pm, I got to Philly closer to 10:00 pm. The incident occurred 5 minutes north of the Baltimore train station around 5:45 pm. The conductor stopped the train and said that we had to move back to Baltimore station and switched tracks because there was an "obstruction" on the track. We waited for another half an hour until the conductor went back on the speaker and said that there's further delay because of "police activities". The train became a mad house and everyone of course immediately rushed to the food cart and cleaned that place out. It was a stressful experience because I had family members already at the station waiting for me, no one really knew what had gone on even though I eventually found a news article on said incident. I ended up regretting my decision not eating at D.C. Penn Station's Chipotle and I ended up having this as my dinner...

Jimmy Dean Breakfast Sandwich and Sierra Mist Dinner

All in all, I had an eventful trip and I have so many memories that I took home with me including this amazing photo (similar to the one earlier above) that I took on my phone with Instagram.