Let the summer of travels begin!
For the rest of the summer, I will be traveling pretty much every week, and I cannot WAIT!
Thursday night I took an Amtrak train from Penn Station to D.C. to meet up with one of my oldest college friends, Emily.
Emily and I lived on the same hall freshman year at Wake and became fast friends.
The summer after freshman year, Emily came and visited me in New York and a month later I flew to visit her in Boston. We did that the following year too. We then went abroad to our respective locations (Dijon for me, Florence for her) but connected in Paris for a weekend of adventure.
Flash forward to 2020, it was our senior year, and we were having an amazing time, until Covid hit and turned our senior year upside down.
Long story short, I hadn’t seen Em since March of 2020. It is now almost July of 2021. (Frankly, I haven’t seen most friends since 2020).
So, we were reunited at last and very cheery about our reunion in Emily’s new home.
Friday-
Emily and I both worked remote from her adorable yet very large apartment in Dupont Circle from 9-5. It was nice to have a working buddy. We sat at the kitchen table and took turns having meetings with our clients throughout the day.
Emily and I put on some music and finished up the workday. We each had a lot of exciting work projects and presentations on Thursday and Friday, so we were ready to celebrate!
While I was finishing up work, I saw a friend from home, Jenny, and she met me at Emily’s apartment.
After work, we started the night off strong with expensive cocktails at Whisky Charlie, a rooftop bar on the Potomac. We saw one of the president’s helicopters (Marine One) and got to watch all the planes take off and land from the airport across the river.
The views were beautiful and so were the men ;)
I would highly recommend visiting Whisky Charlie if you are in D.C. for a trip or for a celebratory drink. Emily and I both had the margaritas ($17 each) but totally worth it for the views.
This restaurant was really good and gave us both Boston vibes.
I would highly recommend this spot for tourists and locals.
The sunset from the Wharf was breathtaking Friday night.
After dinner, and our two drinks we decided to Metro home to Emily’s apartment. We were a bit tired from Thursday night because we stayed up almost until 3 A.M. catching up after over a year apart. We ended up grabbing ice cream at Jeni’s on 14th street (super creamy and delicious flavors! I had the brambleberry crisp! 10/10 recommend) and watched the USA Gymnastics Olympic Trials. These athletes are amazing. I am so excited for the Olympic Games in July!
After a good night’s sleep, we walked two miles to Georgetown (such a stunning area) for bagels at Call Your Mother. I recommend ordering your bagel and schmear ahead of time, so you don’t have to wait online.
The bagels were good, and I’m a bagel snob, but I give them my seal of approval, considering they were non-New York bagels.
The temperatures were starting to rise, and our feet were starting to swell. Unfortunately, the metro system isn’t the best in D.C., in my opinion, and is not super convenient. So, we Ubered a lot, but the Ubers aren’t expensive, because everything is very close together. Our most expensive Uber was $20. Uber is a good option if you don’t want to kill your feet.
From the water, we Ubered to the National Gallery of Art (which is free! All the national museums in D.C. are free of charge!) and headed straight for the French Impressionism paintings. After studying abroad and studying French art in a class I took while I was abroad, I have fallen in love with Manet, Monet, Degas, Van Gogh and Renoir. The impressionism gallery wasn’t too impressive, but it was nice to see more variations of the classic pieces that I have seen in various parts of Europe.
Emily and I were clocking about 10,000 steps at this point, so we decided to keep going, what were a few more blisters and a few more steps going to do?
We sat on the Mall, in between the Washington Monument and the Capital Building, while I let my blisters air out and grabbed some cold drinks. We found a shady bench, talked about life, and watched the people go by.
The humidity was 85% and the temperature was reaching the mid 90s. Our clothes were soaked with sweat.
We walked home (another 2 miles), through the sculpture garden and tended to our wounds before we watched some more Olympic trials, before another food adventure.
We went to Colada Shop, (another) rooftop bar, for happy hour drinks.
This is a bright colored and fun spot for a quick bite and drink. We both had mojitos, mine was in a cool glass and Emily’s was in a giant pouch that resembled a Capri Sun.
My blisters were killing me, so I was not happy to walk more steps to dinner, but sushi, Emily’s favorite food, was awaiting.
We climbed the steep stairs to Perry’s Sushi for another rooftop experience (are you sensing a trend yet?). We had edamame, pork sandwiches and various rolls. The sushi was good, but nothing exceptional. My drink, a “Zentini,” on the other hand was a 10/10. It was more a place to say you went to and a cool spot to take friends that are visiting.
We had sweat through our dinner clothes, my blisters were bleeding, but our bellies were full, and the night was young. We went home, tended to our blisters (again) and got ready to go bar hopping. We started at Shenanigans, a dive bar, that does $10 all you can drink from 8-10pm and then hopped over to Grand Central which had multiple levels of dance floors, good music, and good drinks. Vodka-cran was Emily and my drink for the night.
We danced past 12:30 A.M. at Grand Central and it was so fun! I absolutely love to dance, and that is one thing I have seriously missed from when I was at Wake.
We sweated through our clothes again, seriously-the humidity in D.C. is no joke.
Sunday-
My gracious host and I slept in after walking/dancing a total of 25,000 steps on Saturday.
Our feet had had enough torture and pain for the weekend, so we decided to Uber to the Lincoln Memorial and walk around to the other monuments.
The great thing about going to see the monuments, is that they are all in walking distance, once you see one, it is so easy to see the others. We saw all the monuments: the Washington Monument and Jefferson Memorial, from afar, and sadly didn’t make it to the White House or the Supreme Court building because our feet were starting to give out.
We had an early lunch at Lupo Verde.
I had eggs on focaccia bread, home fries and arugula salad. Emily loved her carbonara pasta.
For my first meal of the day, the food was fine, nothing too special.
I headed home Sunday night via Union Station and a 3-hour, unairconditioned Amtrak train all the way to New York.
I left D.C. with a full heart, full stomach, and sore feet.
I had such a fun trip in D.C.! It is such a young, fun town. I was glad I got to experience D.C. as an adult and with my best adventure buddy and foodie friend!
Love you Em!
Stay tuned for more fun adventures this summer!
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