You & Me in DC: First week in DC

I cant believe its been a week already. Last sunday we arrived at the house and started unloading boxes from the cars.

First off, here are some pictures of the apartment before we moved anything in.

We live in the basement, these are our stairs down to our apartment, there is also a set inside that leads from the laundry area to the hall way up stairs.

Standing at the door at the bottom of the stairs you walk into the living room. Notice the brown walls and ceiling that make the dark basement even darker.

From the front door to the left is the kitchen area.

The door past the fridge goes to our bedroom.

This picture is taken from our bedroom door. The opposite wall has the fridge on it. The oven is that lovely green that was popular about 60 years ago.

This picture is looking back to the door and the living room through the kitchen

This is taken at the end of the kitchen, the door there goes to the bathroom.

And this last picture is of our bedroom.

This week we have put a lot of energy into getting boxed unpacked, building the furniture from IKEA and also getting to know the neighborhood and the city.

Here are some after pictures of the apartment.

This is the same view from walking into the apartment.

Looking from the living room to the kitchen again. The counters are a bit messy, but I love the cheerfulness of the blue area rugs.

We got a occasional table to put under the cabinets by the fridge, therefore giving use to the wasted space. We also added a bunch of lamps to the different rooms.

The view from the bedroom door to the kitchen. The windows are not to the outside on this side of the apartment, the owner has an addition to the upstairs, so if you look out the windows, all you see is the underside of the addition, pipes and brick. Im thinking I will get some nice fabric and make some curtains, just to make it "feel" like they are real windows.

This is from the kitchen to the living room. This corner is Mike's desk area. He will be needing a space to study and sit when he's not in class or at the library.

Next to Mike's desk is the couch, and then the door to the bathroom. Completing the circle to the main area of the apartment.

Our bedroom and bathroom are still a mess, so no pictures yet. But soon, I hope.

We have also gotten to know our neighborhood, there is a Walgreens no more than a 3 minute bike ride away. We also have a Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, Pottery Barn and Apple store with in a 10 minute stroll from the front door at the Market .

We also took a bike ride on wednesday morning. The plan was to bike to the Jefferson memorial, and as we made our way to it, we realized that there were all the other big memorials along the way.

The first one we came across was a big tower with bells, given to the US from the people of the Netherlands. It was in the middle of this lovely park right next to the Arlington Cemetery.

We couldn't bike through the Arlington Cemetery, so we biked on the path around it.

These eagles are at the entrance to the cemetery, at the bridge that crosses from DC to Arlington.

Here we are in the middle of the bridge, with Arlington one the left.

And DC on the right.

These are at DC end of the bridge. A gift from the people of Italy. There are 4 of them. This one is called Valor

Then, we kept going and the next thing we saw was the Lincoln memorial. And at a distance at the other end of the reflecting pool the Washington memorial