This past weekend, my sister and I made an impromptu pilgrimage to the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington, D.C. to see the giant pandas. I had been spying on the panda family via The Giant Panda Cam for weeks and have never been to the nation’s capitol, so I was very excited to play tourist for the day. We hit the National Mall and surrounding attractions early, starting with the Lincoln Memorial, National Monument, Capitol Building and The White House, before taking a Lyft to the Zoo. Thanks to our research, we arrived just in time for prime panda hours, which were between 10:00 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. on Sunday. We watched baby panda Bei Bei climb a tree and be swatted at by his mother to come down, “oohing” and “awing” with a crowd of children and their parents. My sister described the scene as “worse than Beatle-mania” as a crowd of people pushed, shoved and raised their phones and cameras in the air to see the baby panda’s antics. Shamelessly, I made my way to the glass and took some photos; you’re welcome. The downtown D.C. area is so jam-packed with history, culture and attractions, we just could not fit it all in, but not for lack of trying. We missed a few museums we wanted to check out, one in particular being the Renwick Gallery. The Wonder exhibition looks amazing and will be my excuse to go again soon. — Angelique Platas, assistant coordinator of sales and marketing