Two weeks ago I flew into a city that I haven’t stepped foot in for about eight years–Washington D.C. I was there for the weekend to visit one of my oldest friends, Grace, who I went to middle school with (the last time is was in D.C. was on a school trip with her in 7th grade!). My descent into Reagan International Airport was quite scenic; we flew past the mall and all of the different monuments that the city is famous for. After landing I grabbed a taxi and was surprised to find that we had to pass the Capitol to get to Grace’s apartment, which was in the NoMa district.
After a reunion filled with hugs and excited chatter about my flight and finally being together again, we walked over to a local Indian restaurant. I can’t remember for the life of me what the name of the place was but the food was excellent and the interior was pretty funky with messages by previous diners scrawled from floor to ceiling. I decided to be adventurous with my meal and order the spicy chicken and although I didn’t find the dish itself overwhelming, the steam from the chicken made my eyes seriously tear up.
After lunch we hung out at Grace’s apartment before meeting up with a few of her friends for happy hour at a restaurant in Dupont known as Madhatter. The rain was holding out when we arrived and we grabbed a table out on the porch. Drinks and appetizers were ordered, although I think that I confused the waiter a bit by ordering Diet Coke instead of a cocktail (he asked if I wanted rum in my drink…). We chatted about drama in DC, Crossfit, etc. over cheesy fries and drinks and made plans for where to go that night.
We ended up going out to a 18 & older gay club called Town, which had awesome music and was an exciting experience because I had never been to a gay club before.
The next morning, Grace and I took the metro out to Bethesda to have brunch with her cousin and her cousin’s boyfriend. The boyfriend runs a company that delivers locally grown food to people in the D.C. area (somewhat like the CSA package my mom gets every week), so our meal was made entirely of ingredients grown by farmers rather than bought in a grocery store. As an Environmental Studies minor, I am pretty passionate about eating local and cutting down the amount of travel our food encounters, so I was beyond excited to have a totally sustainable meal. Plus brunch is without a doubt my favorite meal of the week so that didn’t hurt either!
We thanked our hosts profusely for having us over for such a delicious (and free!) meal before jumping back on the metro and making our way over to the National Gallery of Art. Both Grace and I took Art History classes in high school and studied a fair majority of the paintings in the museum, so I’m sure we sounded like know-it-alls as we discussed Monet’s fascination with ever changing sources of light in his later works and Vermeer’s soft use of color and brushstroke that make his works so recognizable. We made sure to stop by the Degas/Cassatt exhibition and then walked through the other rooms within the museum, idly chatting about what paintings and sculptures we liked and which ones we weren’t huge fans of. As always, a highlight in the gallery was the religious works and relics which clearly illustrate to me, based on depictions of the Christ child, that artists in the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries had never actually seen a baby in their whole entire lives.
A little bit of London in D.C.!
We strolled through the sculpture garden across the street and laughed to ourselves every time we caught a tourist taking pictures on his/her iPad.
Our next stop was the Natural History Museum, where we walked through the marine and land mammal exhibits and pushed our way through the crowds to catch a peek at the Hope Diamond. The Natural History Museum was always one of my favorites growing and even though I found myself a little overwhelmed by the sheer number of people within the building, the museum did not disappoint and the exhibits were just as fascinating as they were when I was 10 years old.
We took our time walking along the Mall so that I could stop every couple of feet to snap pictures and then stopped to have a quick walk around in the United States Botanic Gardens before it closed. I had never even heard of the Botanic Gardens before so it was a delightful surprise to find such a cool attraction smack dab in the middle of the city. Each room in the greenhouse was dedicated to specific regions of North America and also regions from all around the world, and I was happy to note how many different species of orchards I spotted throughout our walk.
To get back to the apartment, we took the scenic rout and walked by the Capitol and Congress.
Me taking pictures of tourists taking pictures of squirrels:
We ended Saturday with a home-cooked meal and The Devil Wears Prada.
