National Leisure
Jul. 21st, 2012 02:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vovatThis past week, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bethje had to go to Washington, DC to take a class for her job, and I went down there with her. During the day when Beth was at class, I mostly just hung around the hotel room. This in and of itself was a nice break from the usual, as the room had air conditioning. Outside, it was sometimes as much as one hundred degrees, so I was grateful for the cooling. After her class, we'd usually go out and sometimes see some sights as well. Here's a bit of a run-down:
Monday: Saw the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial, which are located way out of the way of any Metro stops, so we were tired out after walking there and back. I remember going to the top of the Monument when I was a kid, but it was closed up this time. Speaking of the Metro, the varying fares were annoying for someone more used to the New York subway, which has a flat rate from when you enter to when you leave. Dinner that evening was at a bar that I forget the name of, which had passable but not great food.
Tuesday: We took the Metro to Dupont Circle, and ate at a nearby Italian place called Otello. I had the rigatoni with sausage and mushrooms, which was quite tasty. After dinner, we stopped by a bookstore and Beth bought a copy of Everything Is Illuminated, since she loved the movie.
Wednesday: This was the day we went to see the Capitol, and also when we got caught in the rain. After changing our drenched clothes, we ate at Nage, a fancy restaurant in the hotel where we were staying, the Marriott Courtyard Embassy Row. Beth had duck, and I had pork schnitzel with pretzel coating.
Thursday: If I may draw your attention back to Tuesday for a moment, we passed a restaurant and bar called the Madhatter on our search for a restaurant near Dupont Circle. I was somewhat enamored of the Alice in Wonderland theme, so I convinced Beth that we should go there for dinner. There were a lot of Alice-related decorations on the walls (our table was next to a French poster for Disney's animated Alice in Wonderland), and as part of the theme they served us tea before the meal. I'm not a big fan of tea, but I like it more than coffee, and I drank it to keep it the spirit. It was a pretty good citrus-flavored iced tea. After that, we had rolls with orange butter, and finally the main course. I ended up getting a bacon cheeseburger, rather boring but still quite good. I also had carrot cake for dessert. After dinner, we eventually made it to the White House, despite my getting us lost in the Circle.
Friday: Checkout time at the hotel was noon, when Beth was already at her class. I read from some books while waiting for her, and her class let out early, so I accompanied her to the train station. The government paid for her to take the train there and back, but not for me, so I took the Greyhound instead. I do have to say that the new Express Greyhounds are nicer than the old ones, but traffic was pretty bad, so I got to Philadelphia much later than I had planned. And this was AFTER I had paid $15 to get an earlier ticket. I finished Robert Rankin's The Dance of the Voodoo Handbag while on the bus, or maybe it was actually a little before boarding. Friday was also the day of the shooting in Colorado, and I'm not going to go into too much detail on that, but I will offer my condolences to the victims and their families and friends. Unfortunately, it seems to me that there isn't always a way to tell who's going to snap and do something insanely horrible. Apparently this guy was planning the shooting for a while, though, which makes it even worse to my mind. I guess I can understand a momentary lapse in sanity more than a long-lasting one, even if not by that much.
bethje had to go to Washington, DC to take a class for her job, and I went down there with her. During the day when Beth was at class, I mostly just hung around the hotel room. This in and of itself was a nice break from the usual, as the room had air conditioning. Outside, it was sometimes as much as one hundred degrees, so I was grateful for the cooling. After her class, we'd usually go out and sometimes see some sights as well. Here's a bit of a run-down:Monday: Saw the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial, which are located way out of the way of any Metro stops, so we were tired out after walking there and back. I remember going to the top of the Monument when I was a kid, but it was closed up this time. Speaking of the Metro, the varying fares were annoying for someone more used to the New York subway, which has a flat rate from when you enter to when you leave. Dinner that evening was at a bar that I forget the name of, which had passable but not great food.
Tuesday: We took the Metro to Dupont Circle, and ate at a nearby Italian place called Otello. I had the rigatoni with sausage and mushrooms, which was quite tasty. After dinner, we stopped by a bookstore and Beth bought a copy of Everything Is Illuminated, since she loved the movie.
Wednesday: This was the day we went to see the Capitol, and also when we got caught in the rain. After changing our drenched clothes, we ate at Nage, a fancy restaurant in the hotel where we were staying, the Marriott Courtyard Embassy Row. Beth had duck, and I had pork schnitzel with pretzel coating.
Thursday: If I may draw your attention back to Tuesday for a moment, we passed a restaurant and bar called the Madhatter on our search for a restaurant near Dupont Circle. I was somewhat enamored of the Alice in Wonderland theme, so I convinced Beth that we should go there for dinner. There were a lot of Alice-related decorations on the walls (our table was next to a French poster for Disney's animated Alice in Wonderland), and as part of the theme they served us tea before the meal. I'm not a big fan of tea, but I like it more than coffee, and I drank it to keep it the spirit. It was a pretty good citrus-flavored iced tea. After that, we had rolls with orange butter, and finally the main course. I ended up getting a bacon cheeseburger, rather boring but still quite good. I also had carrot cake for dessert. After dinner, we eventually made it to the White House, despite my getting us lost in the Circle.
Friday: Checkout time at the hotel was noon, when Beth was already at her class. I read from some books while waiting for her, and her class let out early, so I accompanied her to the train station. The government paid for her to take the train there and back, but not for me, so I took the Greyhound instead. I do have to say that the new Express Greyhounds are nicer than the old ones, but traffic was pretty bad, so I got to Philadelphia much later than I had planned. And this was AFTER I had paid $15 to get an earlier ticket. I finished Robert Rankin's The Dance of the Voodoo Handbag while on the bus, or maybe it was actually a little before boarding. Friday was also the day of the shooting in Colorado, and I'm not going to go into too much detail on that, but I will offer my condolences to the victims and their families and friends. Unfortunately, it seems to me that there isn't always a way to tell who's going to snap and do something insanely horrible. Apparently this guy was planning the shooting for a while, though, which makes it even worse to my mind. I guess I can understand a momentary lapse in sanity more than a long-lasting one, even if not by that much.
