I'd been thinking, for a long time, of going to "the D.C. area" to visit friends. I had a Rapid Rewards round-trip voucher anywhere Southwest flies but hadn't found a good weekend to use it. I told Jason and Tim (the two people I know who live in that area) that I would visit D.C. while they lived there. Jason is about to graduate from Georgetown, so the time had come...maybe. I packed some luggage but still wasn't convinced it was the right weekend. At about 1:00 pm on Friday, I decided to go. I drove to the airport and hopped on a flight to D.C. which I had reserved but figured I'd just cancel if I decided not to go. I heart Southwest.
I arrived at the Dulles airport after 11 pm. After waiting far too long for my luggage, Tim picked me up, and we went to Falls Church, where he lives in a quiet, suburban home with a bunch of other members of his ward. Jason came over from D.C. to go grab something to eat, and we went to the Silver Diner, apparently one of the few late-night hangouts around there. My favorite part of the evening was when Jason got up to go to the bathroom, and the two mid-twenties girls who had been glancing over at our table repeatedly and flirtatiously actually watched him walk all the way to the bathroom. When the blond girl realized I caught her checking out my friend, she covered her mouth and then said, "I was totally not just checking him up and down...like three times..." I laughed and said, "And neither was your friend." Her brunette friend then jumped in, without looking over at us, and said, very matter-of-factly and with a smirk, "I didn't check him up and down. I focused on one area the whole way." We had a good laugh about their cheekiness. After they left, we told Jason about the whole thing, and he said, as if it was a given, "Well, yeah, I have a fantastic can." Humble.
Since we'd been up until 3 am, there was much sleeping in, and Tim and I headed towards D.C. at around 1 pm to meet up with Jason again. Finding a parking place in tightly-packed Georgetown was a challenge. Jason lives about a block from campus, and Georgetown is bustling on the weekends, yuppies and snobs galore, with a smattering of us simple folk here and there. The house Jason lives in is narrow--very narrow--and has crooked, rickety stairs. It's great.
We picked up Jason's friend, Cheryl, to take her to a bike shop in Adams Morgan for some repairs and had lunch while there. We walked around humming and hawing, exploring various restaurants of diverse ethnicities and themes. On one short stretch of a road, there was pizza, empanadas, Ethiopian food, a French bistro, a café specializing in vegan delights, Indian, a pricey Latin American grill, and a quaint and raunchy little place called "Madam's Organ". Then there was the communal little homework and mingle café Cheryl had recommended, called Tryst. We ate there. Really good sandwiches, lusty desserts. Good meal.
I have to take a moment to address the fine people of D.C. What the @#$% are you wearing? I mean, I'm really in no place to critique fashion, but fashion faux pas abounded. For example, the girl who was wearing a light yellow sundress with a dark blue thong. No. Not OK. And keep in mind that sundresses, airy and cool though they may be, are not flattering on everyone. Sometimes they just reveal too much contour. Too much. And to all of the guys wearing deep v-neck T-shirts: bony ribs and saggy manbreasts are only accentuated by the v-neck in entirely non-flattering ways. Why does everyone wear them? It's not OK, and it needs to stop. I'll say no more on the subject.
That evening, I accompanied Jason to a Cultural Diversity thing at Georgetown. It was fun to meet his classmates and friends I’d heard about; they were fun! I'll probably never see them again. C'est la vie. We decided to check out a dance on campus, but I was disinterested (go fig!), so I took a brief walk to find an available gender-segregated bathroom (you heard me), and I took some pictures, most of which did not turn out at all, but hey, it was worth experimenting and enjoying the night air. While walking around campus, I witnessed a few things: a girl squatting against the side of a building to pee, a "fabulous" drag queen smoking by a proudly waving rainbow flag, a bunch of guys in bathrobes running into the library carrying an inflatable woman who looked...surprised. So this is Georgetown? I heard the pope is in town. I chuckled as I thought he might have a word or two about all of this.
During the course of the evening, I had found out my friend Derek was also in town, at a ward 80's party at Tim's place, so we decided to go grab a bite to eat. So met up around midnight and cruised through the various neighborhoods of D.C.'s night life with the top down on Derek's rented BMW convertible. It was chilly but definitely the way to go, being able to see all the architecture and people walking by. At one stoplight, I heard this repetitive "Holla holla holla, holla holla," coming from the cab next to us. I looked around to see where it was coming from, and there was a very plastered-looking girl staring out at our car from the back window of the cab over her plastered-looking friend. She looked frozen. Drunk and frozen. I smiled, nodded, and laughed as I looked to my cohorts in the front seat as if to say, "What am I supposed to do with this situation?" She paused her monotonous "Holla holla holla!" as I looked away and yelled, "Don't deny! Holla holla holla..." The light turned green. I shrugged and smiled and nodded good-bye. I'm sure she forgot about it 5 minutes later.
So we finally stopped for dinner at Annie's, a late-night hangout in Dupont. The lanky, flamboyant host with his sculpted-to-the-side afro puff waved us in to follow him to our table. When we didn't realize he meant us, he did it again with added flare and diva-like attitude. We looked at each other and laughed to ourselves and followed him to the back. We couldn't decide what to eat. French toast and eggs? Greek steak salad? Buffalo wings? Hey, why not split all three?! Weirdest "meal" I've had in a long time, but fun.
Sunday was a low-key day. Unfortunately, because we'd been out so late Saturday night, I slept in too late to make it to Tim's ward to meet all of his friends, which I was bummed about. After loitering and chatting endlessly, Jason and I headed out to walk around the neighborhood and find some lunch. Yes, we ate out like heathens on the Sabbath. So in exchange for our eternal salvation, we had really good gyros at Moby Dick's House of Kabob. REALLY good.
While walking around, I took a boatload of pictures. There's so much charming architecture around Georgetown.
On one of the streets, we found a rather lost-looking couple anxiously trying to find just the right store:
And I noticed somebody was playing a cruel trick on streetcar drivers all over the place:
That evening, Tim came back into D.C., and we all watched a movie at Jason's place. I had said I was up for something kind of fun, lighthearted, heartwarming, uplifting, that sort of thing. So we opted for Dan in Real Life. At the end, Jason said, "Good thing we picked something light." Sometimes, I forget that my idea of "light" is not necessarily everyone else's. Ha!
Later that night, we were too awake to sleep, so we went for a drive. First thing to see: the D.C. temple at night. This was what I most wanted to see. We couldn't get close since the grounds were all locked up, but it was quite a magnificent sight nonetheless. And it's true what they say about it rising out of the ground right in front of you. I had braced myself to be disappointed by people's exaggerated stories, but it's just like they said. Gorgeous. We then drove through D.C., by the White House, the Washington Monument, and the other monuments from a distance. I'd seen all of this when I was in D.C. in younger years, so a quick refresher was all I needed.
Monday, we had just enough time to get in a quick workout on Georgetown's campus and go to Cafe Bonaparte for some really good crepes and some tasty gelato (cinnamon and dulce de leche, though the red papaya was tempting) before I hopped on a bus to the airport.
In the Chicago airport, the lady on the PA system announced something about keeping an eye on your "beggeej" and gave some advice to those "with possessions of boarding passes". I'm pretty sure she meant "in possession of", but I just smiled and shrugged.
It was an easy flight. I could do this weekend cross-country thing again.
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