A Capitol Adventure: The Weekend That Never Ended

Last weekend was a long weekend. After fidgeting all Friday afternoon, I was finally released into THREE whole days of freedom! What amazing plans did I have? What fabulous adventures was I going to get up to? Anything could happen in three whole days!

I am the queen of from-scratch pizzas

I made (from scratch) the most amazing pizza ever when I got home from work, which Miranda requested to be her last meal someday. Then we went to our favorite DC spot, Pittango Gelato, for some gelato topped with hot chocolate. Yeah, that's a thing. And it's as amazing as it sounds!

Saturday morning, I slept in and took it easy. I treated myself to a homemade sausage, egg, and cheese English muffin sandwich or breakfast, then started reading one of the romance novels I picked up at the conference. I enjoyed being lazy, eating chocolate and pringles and reading, then Miranda and I headed to Kay's for galentine's! That included Laliguras Indian and Nepali Bistro (which was interestingly the first curry I've gotten from a restaurant. I've only ever had my sister-in-law's or my own curry.) It was one of the most delicious meals I've had here in DC. That was some gooooooood lamb curry. Then we had fun shopping in Walgreen's (yeah, laugh, but it was two stories of Walgreen's! There were things on sale! You don't know what you're missing), then we ate a whole bunch of ice cream and chatted. Kay and I convinced Miranda that the men of Morris are far superior to other men. We read the steamy bits of romance novels aloud. It was a good night. But the walk home from the metro stop was one of the coldest, snowiest walks I've had in a long time.

A happy poet in her element

Sunday, gosh, the weekend wasn't even halfway over! Sunday morning Miranda and I deep cleaned the entire apartment since it was cold out and we didn't exactly feel like spending a lot of time outdoors. We did, however, go visit Busboys and Poets. We thought we'd check out one of their open mic nights, but thanks to the Metro's cursed red line, we were far too late. We got dinner there instead, and my turkey burger was to die for. We also found a great little thrift shop next door, called Crossroads, but it was closing time, so we vowed to return another day.
Monday was the big President's Day, so Miranda and I went over to Old Town Alexandria to see their President's Day parade, apparently the largest in the country. We found the

George Washington Masonic National Memorial! And a giant flock of geese, which I gleefully chased. You should have been there. Then we took the adorable trolley down the main street to the waterfront. Oh, and we found out that the parade was cancelled due to inclement weather. I swear, it's like they've never seen snow out here. Anyway, we didn't let that dampen our day. We went to the Torpedo Factory Art Center, which actually used to be a torpedo factory, but now holds tons of studios for over 165 artists to create and display their work. Wandering through, meeting artists, and seeing their variety of work, was one of the best things I've done during my time here. We ate leftover pizza on the dock and almost got hit in the head by seagulls overexcited about bread crumbs, then we wandered the town. It was fun to go into little shops and boutiques when we felt like it, or to go to historic sites when they caught our fancy. We also ate cupcakes at Alexandria Cupcakes, but I will tell you more about that in my next post. We saw the Stabler-Leadbetter Apothecary Museum, where Martha Washington got her medicine and Christ Church, where Washington, Robert E. Lee, and many others worshipped. Other sites were closed because it was snowing. Again with the snow thing. Anywho, then we ate dinner at O'Connell's pub. I got crab cakes, which were the first and also best crab cakes I've ever had. It was such a fun time that we hardly even missed the parade.

Then, Monday evening, we found out that due to the snow, neither of us had work the next day! That meant we had a four-day weekend. So I had another day where I got to sleep in and take it easy. We ended up going back to the thrift store, where I bought a great skirt for work, and stopping at a Dunkin Doughnuts because I had raved about their brownie batter doughnut to Miranda. I tried the chocolate chip cookie dough one this time, but I think I liked the brownie batter better. Then we went to Chinatown and caught the movie "Selma." I cried through pretty much the whole thing, and it was actually worth the exorbitant ticket price. (Morris definitely spoiled me with its $5 movies).