What Could Go Wrong?

7 Days, 3 Girls, 1 Dog, 4 Cities

DC By Night

Yesterday we got a bit of a late start leaving the Jerz, mainly due to some moving snafu's and the fact that if I get in the car one more time and "On the Road Again" is playing, I'll lose it. So we arrived in Dupont Circle around 5 pm, and were welcomed (albeit a bit warily) by Chrisy's very kind and very tolerant younger brother named Brian. He seemed somewhat taken aback by the amount of luggage, pillows, totes, boxes, small accessories and flat-irons three women could pull out of a Jetta and promptly deposit on the floor of his apartment, but assisted nonetheless. After some time decompressing and yet another shower for Lindsay, we struck off in search of the Mall and my buddy Barack.

We made it about four blocks into our two mile trek when we decided (as usual) that we were hungry. We stopped at an entrance to a restaurant on 17th called Floriana, which had a giant rainbow flag hanging off the awning. Perfect. We chowed on arguably the best butternut squash ravioli I've ever had, which Floriana makes herself by hand. I kept imagining her as the Nathan Lane character in the movie "The Birdcage," strutting around the kitchen putting scalloped edges on the corners of her pasta. However, we learned Floriana was in Italy, so I'll never know just who she is/was.

Having satiated our hunger, we continued on our walk, passing by Chrisy's place of employment as well as the Human Rights Watch offices, notably. Finally, we rather suddenly found ourselves walking through a grassy square and there it was:  the White House.  It was quite majestic in its evening glow and much smaller than my brain had calculated from pictures. In its smallness it seemed even bigger and more mysterious. We snapped some pictures and continued our walk past the Treasury and toward the Washington Monument.

All along the walk, when my feet weren't hurting, I found myself thinking about how much of the mall was pictured covered with people when Obama gave his inaugural address. It would have been a sight to see even in its bitter cold that day.

The Washington Monument was downright awe-inspiring, as was the World War II monument, which had its two "oceans" separated by a giant, crashing fountain, no doubt mimicking the waves. We wandered alongside the reflection pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial and along the way passed by a small stable just west of the water. For all the years I've seen and heard about the mall, I never knew the park police horses lived amid such a historic site. It was kind of an odd place to stumble across a barn. We also walked along the Korean War memorial, which has an eerie depiction of infantrymen and signal corpsmen creeping through the thicket.

The Lincoln Memorial by far had the most visitors and was glowing in the night sky. A man reenacted Lincoln's address to his daughter, and people were snapping photos everywhere. There is a timeless inscription of the second-ever inaugural address in which Lincoln referred to healing the wounds of our countrymen in order to preserve our union - a paragraph that rings true today as we look for a way to justify our expenditures on time and money in finding an adequate healthcare solution.

We ended our walk with a sobering stroll through the Vietnam Memorial. Interestingly, none of us have fathers who served in Vietnam (my dad wanted to enlist to be a helicopter pilot but was unable to get his father to sign the paperwork to allow him to commit).

After walking through the monuments we decided to meet up with Chrisy's brother at a bar and that the servicemen and women would have wanted it that way. So off we went (by cab) to 18th and M to our first one-word bar of the evening - Public. Their slogan is "For the people, by the people." Really.  The cast of the Real World showed up and I noted that I was finally too old to care.  We then headed with Chrisy's brother and his friends to another bar called Current, which apparently we weren't quite current enough for.  Luckily there was another bar called Panache that during the day is some sort of a French bistro.  The restaurant chairs and tables had all been pushed to the side to make room for a dance floor, and instead of a DJ they had a radio playing DJ-ish music.  This morning we got up and headed to brunch at the aptly named Commissary, which serves sustainable foods and had a sort of Halcyon-meets-Kerby-Lane feel to it.

My flight leaves this afternoon and I'll be disembarking the Crazy Train.  I plan on returning to Austin to do some heavy aerobic exercise, let my tastebuds rest and put my feet in a bucket of ice water.  Lindsay will be taking over as blogmaster, so stay tuned!

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Phila as in Philadelphia

Last night Christina, Rachel, Debra (Christina's mom) and I headed into Philadelphia (about a 25 minute drive from Lumberton, NJ) for a ladies night out on the town. Philadelphia was vibrant and beautiful at night. We saw the Liberty Bell on display and walked past Independence Hall where the Declaration of Independence was debated and adopted. The Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution were both signed there as well. Oh and did I mention lots of good looking men there?

We walked around 2nd and Market street for First Friday where a lot of art galleries and retail shops keep their doors open late and local artists display their masterpieces, from screen printing, paintings and books to jewelry and knitted hats.

After strolling down 2nd street, we finally worked up our appetite and stumbled upon Farmicia www.farmiciarestaurant.com for dinner. We had a reservation at Parc, a French Brasserie but we decided to eat somewhere we could walk to. And before Parc, I was really hoping to eat at Vetri Ristorante but they only did a tasting menu on Friday and Saturday night that cost $135, a high price for all of us to have to pay. I typically would be down for that but having to live on a budget in the meantime does not afford me to eat the way I want to. Farmicia puts emphasis on great tasting food and beverages crafted from local, organic, and artisanal producers. The food was AMAZING and I highly recommend going their if you are ever in Philadelphia. A great alternative to a $135 meal.

I was so hungry by the time we sat down, the waiter came by with a basket with four different kinds of bread. He asked me which kind I wanted and I said, "All four please". He thought I was kidding for a second but little did he realize, I wasn't joking. All four of us ordered equally delicious dishes and are as follows:

  • Proscuitto & Black Mission Figs filled w blue cheese & walnuts, arugula w/ orange rosemary dressing
  • Goat Cheese Gnocchi & Braised Fennel fresh marinara sauce, fennel greens pesto
  • Curried Apple and Carrot soup
  • Crabmeat & Asian Pear Salad almonds, lemon-mint dressing, lettuces, creamed avocado
  • Butter Lettuce Salad fresh grapefruit vinaigrette, avocado, toasted hazelnuts
  • Meadow Run Chicken Breast herb-roasted, sweet corn polenta, farm green beans, basil salsa verde
  • Pan Roasted Lamb Tenderloins asparagus, sauteed goat cheese gnocchi, mint-shallot relish
  • Roasted Eggplant Cannelloni Italian grain & home-made ricotta filling, roasted tomato sauce, greens
  • Key Lime Pie
  • Chocolate and Walnut brownie sundae with vanilla ice cream

By the end of dessert, I could hardly move. Stuffed from dinner and tired from NYC the night before, I mustered the energy I got from my cappuccino to walk back to the car. All in all, from what I saw, I give Philadelphia an A+. Loved it and would like to go back to spend more time their someday.

Today's Agenda: Washington D.C.

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New Fork City

After a hectic moment at Penn Station, in which I continued the time-honored Farris tradition of disappearing five minutes prior to the train's departure, causing widespread panic among my travelmates, we are now safely onboard and headed back to Dirty Jersey. This train is less glamorous than the doble-decker one we took up to NYC and more closely resembles an old school bus on tracks. However it will deliver me from the sixty dollar bar tabs of New York, and for that I thank this train and its wood-paneled 70's era cars.

 New York was (expensive and) beautiful and we were graced with perfect weather - 70 degrees and sunny - which made our arrival quite enjoyable. We were treated to an amazing hotel called the Hudson Hotel (thank you Pat!), just west of Central Park on 9th and 58th. It had earthy, modern details (ivy growing up exposed brick walls inside the atrium) and luxe, vintage glamour - velvet and leather upholstery with gold and brown tones. Best of all, it was a short walk to Central Park, which is where we headed in short order after getting to town. We ate lunch lakeside at the Boathouse Cafe and enjoyed some crisp (forty dollar) vinho verde from Portugal's Twin Vines label. We remarked on our successful cross-country journey and I daydreamed about summer scarves and gondolas.
After we walked through Central Park, we headed back to the Hudson and checked out their fifteenth floor rooftop terrace, which looked west over the city and was littered with white petunias and ivy. One of Chrisy's friends from high school, Joe, met up with us for a (nine dollar) beer. We watched the sun sink down and practiced the art of sitting outside without dripping in sweat. Lindsay and I camped out on a bench for a while, shoeless, true to Austin form.

 Chrisy and I grabbed some (ten dollar) coffee while Lindsay took a (free) shower. Then we headed down to the outside bar to meet up with some of Lindsay's friends. I had a mini-meltdown, brought on by Wall Street bankers and an instant fifty dollar bar tab. After that excitement we headed for another bar called Zanzibar which I guess was less expensive. There I met up with my old friends Renee and Pete who now live in NYC, and Chrisy's friend Joe met up with us again. Thanks Adam, Lindsay's friend, for buying us a round of drinks since clearly "desk analysts" are the only people who can afford to drink in New York anymore.

 When traveling with a foodie, you start to feel like you're being fattened for slaughter. A very expensive slaughter. Lindsay, who hobbies in "gourmet eating" (I've never written the word gourmet before) wanted us to go to a restaurant called Per Se, Thomas Keller's (yeah, him) NY restaurant. She was overruled, and so instead we settled for pizza at a corner store. Unfortunately, Lindsay couldn't settle with just having a slice of pizza so she threw a twenty dollar bill on the counter and asked how many desserts she could buy with it. Apparently twenty dollars can buy you the following in New York at three thirty in the morning: cheesecake, chocolate torte, baklava, cannoli, and some cookies.

 Anyway the moral of the story is that New York is like a horse - pretty but expensive, and hardly worth all hassle. But Lindsay still wants to live there, so she can live in a cardboard box while eating chicken cordon bleu and mussels every night.

 As for me, I'll stick with Guerro's. Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

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