When Sunday rolled in, we had our best weather yet. It was sunny, it was warm, the weather was essentially perfect. It made it all the more sad to me that I couldn’t spend the entire beautiful day with my rays of California sunshine.
TL;DR Farm-to-belly brunch, memorial walk, and… saying goodbye to Karen and Christine
(Day 1)
Day 2 is probably the morning that we woke up most refreshed after getting the most amount of sleep during this SCK adventure. This is because of what happened at the end of Day 2, but we’ll get to that.
TL;DR We focus a lot on food today, kicking off with fried food galore, doing some museum hopping in the afternoon, and then going out for a night on the town with friends before eating a late night meal at 4 AM.
Once upon a time, there was a bored girl recovering from the fall of a mystical blogging platform called Xanga. She noticed that WordPress.com had a “Suggested blogs” feature, through which she found two lovely California girls named Christine and Karen. After months and months of chatting online, it was decided that they would visit me and see DC. Plane tickets were purchased, air mattresses were inflated…
This weekend, they learned that I am, indeed, too lazy to pull off an elaborate catfish plan, hurray! We had a JAM-PACKED weekend, so let’s get straight to it!
TL;DR – I didn’t catfish my new friends, exploring Union Station and Shake Shack, silly faces at the National Postal Museum, mind-blowing beauty at the Library of Congress, a dreary pre-tourist mob view of the cherry blossoms, and a bar themed after a US president because DC.
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I’ve had a very eventful Chanukah, actually! Although I’m not Jewish, I figured this would be a good way to mark the time period and also its a fun holiday where you get to eat fried food (hit me up with some latke and sufganiyot) and play with dreidels and chocolate gelt. (In another life, I was destined to marry a nice Jewish boy.)
Let us begin!
On the first day of Chanukah, I spent the day ambling about the National Aquarium. I’ve been 2 times before, but I have this apparently unique habit of wanting to read every single sign. All of them. After all, someone worked very hard to make the signs and I want to learn and know what I’m looking at when I’m in an aquarium/museum/art gallery! It was nice to spend the day there without having someone rush me through the exhibits.
I got to see the beautiful little golden lion tamarins, looking at me with their giant eyes and hugging each other.
(They later started humping each other about arm’s-length away from me and I will just assure myself that doesn’t mean anything.)
I had a lovely dinner and a lovely birthday cake. (But srsly, can a girl get some Carvel ice cream cake with those delectable chocolate crunchies?)
I took my dad to the airport on Thursday (before seeing the last Hobbit film again) because my grandfather is unwell and he wants to look after him. This would begin a long weekend of me chauffeuring my family around.
On Friday, I was able to crash attend my old company’s holiday party at – wait for it – the Newseum! For those unfamiliar, the Newseum is a really cool museum that looks at our history and relationship with news. News is intensely important in informing us what is going on, whether in our own background or across the world, and it’s really amazing to see how far the news has come as well as how far we have come in parallel with the news.
Also it was fun scaring the bejeezus out of people who thought they would never see me again.
Even though it’s not free admission (SADNESS) (in a town with all the free Smithsonian institutions, it’s difficult to get me to pay for a museum or art gallery or zoo), I would really like to come back to the Newseum for a proper visit. While it’s a really cool venue, I don’t think it’s a great place for a celebratory party, given that a lot of news is, well, bad news. The coat check line hugged the wall with all of the Pulitzer Prize-winning photos and people were stumbling around drunkenly through the 9/11 exhibit. It felt distasteful, in my opinion, but that’s no fault of the museum’s.
In any case, I had a lot of fun with my old coworkers and I’m glad I was able to see so many old familiar faces.
(ALSO WE HAVE A SLOW-MO VIDEO)
I came back from DC really late that evening, and was supposed to go to an alumni meeting Saturday morning but I totally slept in and missed it, whoops. Luckily, they very kindly invited me out to lunch and we had dumpling at “Mama’s Dumplings” (aka China Bistro) and tried the famous new bubble tea place SnowBots for some snow cream! I don’t really have many photos from Saturday but it was nice to catch up with this group from college that I really had fallen out of touch with. I also picked up my brother from school after picking up an extra boba for him as a post-finals treat.
On Sunday, my Yelp region had our annual holiday party! I went dressed as Santa (kinda) and a fun time was had by all. There was White Elephant, a gingerbread house contest, a mimosa bar, Italian food catered by Venti Tre, bagels galore, eggnog, a photo gbooth, etc. etc. Again, not many photos since I was working the event, but it was a lot of fun.
Afterwards, I went to a belated birthday dinner with my closest friends and my boyfriend and then we went back to my room to just chill for a bit and so that I could give everyone their Christmas gifts. (I’m so glad I cleaned my room!)
Yesterday, I mostly chilled before picking up my mom from the airport, thus having chauffeured every member of my immediate family and making a second trip to the airport.
And that’s been Hanukkah for me! If only I could get my hands on some potato pancakes and jelly doughnuts…
Thanksgiving is the time of year that we gather our family ’round and feast a-plenty.
For your family away from family, there is Friendsgiving.
This year’s Friendsgiving was the best one yet! We really stepped up our food game this year:
I accidentally ended up doing a lot of the food prep for our meal (oops) because I’m a bit of a control freak in the kitchen (ooooops). But I like to think it was practice for when I prepare a full-on Thanksgiving meal for my family + guests this week.
We ran into a small SNAFU when the oven at Jen’s place refused to work, throwing off my plan to roast the brussel sprouts and bake the mac. So, in the end, I just sauteed the sprouts and left the mac unbaked. 😦 They still tasted great!
I’m excited and also scared for my Thanksgiving at home, but I feel a renewed sense of confidence in my ability to cook. (Also, I’m trying not to think about the turkeys I’ve made in the past, which, as most turkeys end up being, were not properly browned and a bit dry.)
After helping ourselves to seconds and getting some pumpkin pie, we cuddled Jen’s cats and watched Love Actually, to kick off the holiday spirit with a classic Christmastime movie.
My friends and I may be scattered as we go off to school and new jobs and new things next year, but I hope we’re able to do Friendsgiving every year in spite of it!
Do you celebrate Friendsgiving?
What are you having for your Thanksgiving meal? What are you most looking forward to?
Also, stay tuned because, with any luck, I will have an actual holiday music playlist (or 5) ready for my Friday post! FRIDAY, the official day I may start blasting holiday music without fear of haters.
Sip of Starrshine 