Almost My Last DC Entry

This past weekend I hosted the last of my many guests, and completed my second to last weekend in DC. Looking back, it has been a wonderful summer in a wonderful city and I feel like I have had the chance to see so many beautiful sites and spend time with so many great people. I will definitely be sad to leave, but I'm looking forward to spending time with family and my puppies and diving into my second year of coursework!

As a weekend recap, here goes!:

We started off Friday night with dinner at the Newseum's signature Wolfgang Puck restaurant called The Source (do you get the play on journalism?). The dinner was lovely -- I had a wild king salmon hand-rubbed with Asian seasonings and served on a bed of bok choy and vegetables accompanied with a delicious Riesling and followed with a warm vahlrona chocolate truffle cake -- until Tausha lost her camera. We're still not entirely sure how "Cameragate," as she calls it, began, and we've yet to get clues from anyone calling themselves "Deep Throat," but somehow her camera went missing after we ate. Although she didn't notice it until we were leaving the movie theater after seeing "The Hangover" (funny, with some vulgar/unnecessary dialogue, but worth seeing for a good laugh), it put a bit of a damper on the evening.

Saturday morning, we began our day with a tour of the Library of Congress, which really is stunning with its gothic arches and Italian-influenced interior decor. As we walked around reading the quotes about literature and pouring over the domed ceiling and ethereal artwork, we seriously thought we were touring some ancient European church, and not a library. From there we had lunch at the American Indian museum cafe (I had chicken mole, which was good, but I think they are lying when they say it has chocolate in it) and then stopped to tour the Hirshhorn, which was a bit of a let down since one of the floors was temporarily closed and some of the exhibits were just totally strange. Nevertheless, we had some fun with my camera's color accent feature as evidenced below with our trippy tribute to the 60s and "Across the Universe":

Since we were able to complete the museum so quickly, we took an hour to explore the US Botanical Gardens, just off the Capitol. Talk about B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L! We took more than 40 photos of the gorgeous flowers, although this one, courtesy of Tausha's mad photography skills, takes the cake:

After getting flowered out, we hit up a Thai restaurant for dinner and then took the train out to West Falls Church to see the National Symphony Orchestra at Wolf Trap. They were playing a night of movie music by John Williams and covered the themes from Jaws, Indiana Jones, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Superman and more. The best part was perhaps seeing my good old friends from the 501st, a group of die-hard Star Wars fans that deck out in costumes every chance they get (Jedis, stormtroopers, Jawas and Darth Vader himself made appearances). I met some of the members back when I worked at Disney and covered Star Wars Weekends for the PR team.

Sunday was Tausha's last day, so we began with a leisurely brunch in Georgetown at the cutest little French restaurant called Cafe Bonaparte. I completely blew my diet with a Nutella Cappucchino, a "Rembrandt" omelette filled with brie and sundried tomatoes and half of a chocolate croissant. After that, it was a relaxing stroll through Georgetown to Tudor Place, a magnificent home originally owned by Martha Washington's granddaughter Martha Custis Peter and later passed through the family for more than 100 years.

The weekend didn't end as well as it started unfortunately, as I discovered 6 pesky mosquito bites on my legs (who knew moquitos could bite through jeans?) and a broken air conditioner in my apartment (thank you for rescuing me from my 81 degree sweatbox Amy!). Alas, today I am exhausted and feel ready for my next espresso-filled beverage (already downed a Venti from Starbucks). Toodaloo!