A Change of Pace

Hello All-

For a change of pace, I thought I'd hand the reigns [or should I say the keyboard] over to someone new. So, here's my guest blogger. I won't tell you who it is, but it shouldn't be too hard to figure out. ;)

--------

Oh, what to say, what to say, about DC this weekend. I arrived on Thursday night, just past midnight. I briefly met one of Jesse's suite-mates, Abby, and Abby's boyfriend Anuar. I say briefly because we were trying to get to bed since Jesse still had to go to work on Friday.

After our slumber, Jesse left for work and I decided to entertain myself with this little thing called the internet. I know, not the coolest thing I could have done. Luckily, Abby and Anuar were nice enough to join the cause of fighting my boredom; and they did quite a good job! Abby made lunch: frozen pizza from Trader Joe's, which was surprisingly delectable. Two other guys in the TFAS program came over for lunch and they were the source of some interesting conversations ranging from economics and feminism to movies and pop-culture. The topics varied so much that, at one point, we weren't sure if we were talking about Subway (the sandwich chain) or the subway (like the metro).

After lunch I went to pick Jesse up from work. I got to meet four of the women that she works with/for and they were all so nice. It was near impossible to walk out of that place without sporting a smile. The night brought us some shopping on M street until we stumbled upon a nice Vietnamese restaurant. We got a chicken dish and a fried rice dish, which sounded very similar to Chinese. It wasn't. I called it different. Jesse called it funky. These unfamiliar tastes grew on me after a few minutes. Unfortunately, I can't say the same happened for Jesse. Feeling bad about dinner, I insisted we visit two of Jesse's favorite friends... Ben and Jerry. We sat by the Potomac just before sunset and enjoyed dessert.

Saturday was more of a tourist day. We did all of the stereotypical tourist activities. We started with the Air and Space Museum before we ventured north, outside of the Smithsonian area. Having a revelation of hunger, we began seeking out a place to grab lunch. I was lucky to suggest a left turn at some point because we found a Tex-Mex place called Austin Grill where I made up for picking the Vietnamese place the previous night. We continued our tourism with seeing the major monuments and finished off with the White House before heading back to the apartment. We had a relaxing evening, watching a movie and finishing off some leftovers; I was in charge of finishing the Vietna... well, you know where this is going.

Today, Sunday, began with a trip to Eastern Market. Jesse has mentioned it earlier in the blog, but for her hometown followers I would like to mention that it is like a high-class Cowtown. We got free samples of some really tasty fruit. I was considering purchasing a t-shirt featuring a picture of two dogs talking: "Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?" "No, but it makes my mouth water." Jesse was efficient in talking me out of that purchase. After leaving the market, we wandered around until we decided to get brunch and this French place, Montmartre. Eggs Benedict will never be the same. Now, I'm sad to say that I have to pack my bag for the trip home. However, I'm very excited that I'm coming back in just five days. Thats right folks, I'll be spending the Fourth of July weekend in Washington, D.C.

...and i'm sure some very interesting stories will come from that weekend. So be sure to check back.

- Guest Blogger

In case you haven't figured it out by now, the guest blogger was Michael, my boyfriend of over five years now. He did such a good job of re-capping our weekend, that I only have a few things to add.

1. I must have "ice cream fanatic" written all over my face because the Ben & Jerry's employees were force feeding me ice cream from the moment I walked into the shop. I literally received five samples in the three minutes we were in the shop. In fact, if I had delayed my purchase decision any longer, I wouldn't have even had to have made a purchase because I would have been full from samples.

2. Michael and I realized earlier today that we didn't spend money on anything else besides transportation and food. I guess this could be either good or bad depending on how you look at it.

3. Speaking of food, we tried out Thomas Sweets, which is a sweet shop on Wisconsin that gets rave reviews. We split a tart yogurt which was good, but I definitely wanna head back and try something a little more traditional. My only complaint was the menu which was written haphazard on a chalkboard and was very difficult to read.

4. {this is definitely a side note} I finish up my first class on Tuesday and begin my second one on Thursday which means that I am almost half-way through my time here in D.C. :O