quarantine daydream // washington dc

Welcome to the daydreaming quarantining series! I am inside and I am bored and I miss going places. So I will be taking some time to write some posts documenting my travels over the past few years. I have pictures just sitting on my computer waiting to be edited and shared, and a lot of time on my hands.

Part 1 is Washington DC - gonna work backwards timewise here. I visited two of my best friends living in DC in November 2019 over three days of my fall reading week, and then my mom, my sister, and my one friend's mom joined us for a long weekend. My friends are roommates, and they live in Columbia Heights, so that was our home base for the trip (and it was lovely).

I flew in on a Thursday afternoon. We got a great view of DC on the flight in!

I arrived mid-afternoon and spent the first day exploring the Columbia Heights neighbourhood. Then I met up with my friends for tacos and margaritas at El Chucho for happy hour. Also, let's just take a minute to appreciate two of my favourite things about DC: the row houses and the beautiful metro system.

The next morning I walked to a cute vegan bakery near my house and got a delicious pumpkin creme cookie while Kait and Laura went off to work. Kait met up with me for a mid-morning coffee date at Pear Plum, which is an adorable cafe attached to Each Peach, a little market.

We went on a little walk to another cafe, the Coffee Bar, for chai.

Kait went back to work, and I made my way to Chinatown for a lunch date with Laura. We got $1 Ritual ramen takeout (it was delicious) and brought it to the National Portrait Gallery to eat.

Next up, I went off to the National Archives. I wandered through, but was mostly there for the presidential portraits. Obama's is stunning.

I wandered around the National Mall and then made my way over to the Hirshhorn Museum, which came highly recommended. I loved it - this art gallery is exactly my type - it's abstract, it's modern, and it's creative and out of box.

I made my way back to our place and we had dinner out and a cozy night in with some red wine and candy canes from Trader Joe's. And my sister and the mamas arrived! In the morning, we took the metro down to a cafe called Dolcezza and then walked through Palmer Alley back to the Mall and the National Gallery of Art, and we grabbed lunch in the basement cafe.

From there, we walked to Capitol Hill. We got another coffee at the famous Ebenezers. We made our way back to the Washington Monument and over to the Lincoln Memorial. This was a really walking-heavy day. We went to the White House too, but it was under construction and kind of underwhelming.

We had happy hour at the Busboys and Poets U Street location, which was lovely. Then we checked out a cute plant shop and a feminist store called the Outrage, which I would highly recommend checking out.

The next morning, we walked to Meridian Hill Park and got brunch and coffee at the Potter's House. So many books! And then we were off! Headed to the airport and the flight home was very delayed but quick and easy once we left.

Overall, DC was a lovely trip. It was very cold in November... it was definitely colder than average for the time of year and we needed lots of layers. 3 days wasn't long enough to explore everything (so many museums) and I plan to go back, especially with friends to visit. Next time I will be going in the spring for the Cherry Blossom Festival, and I swear to you I will never set foot in DC over the summer because I've heard awful things. I will also be bringing Mitchell with me because he will appreciate all the museums way more fully than I will.

Another day of reminiscing, and another few hours killed by photo editing and blog writing. Isolation mission accomplished. Namaste.