The three of us drove down to DC to spend Easter weekend with Alex, rather than try to figure out a way to get him home for only 2 days. We left around 7:00, after breakfast and coffees at home (for a change), and headed out in the mini-snowstorm (enough, already!). It was variously snowy, sleety, and sunny all the way down - we even hit a snow squall right outside of DC!
We got there a little after noon, picked up Alex behind his building, and headed to Tenleytown for a light lunch (looking forward to our big dinner in the evening) and some grocery shopping for him (to make use of the car). He told us there were plenty of restaurants near the Safeway, and it was certainly true.
After parking at the store, we walked down Wisconsin a little way and spotted one called Casa Fiesta, which said it was Mexican and Salvadorean, which sounded intriguing. They served very good chips & salsa for the table, though I still like El Toro's homemade salsa better. I chose the ceviche, which is an aperitivo on the menu, but I wanted to be sure to save room for dinner at 7:00. It was extremely yummy, and a very generous portion – in fact I had them package some leftovers for Alex to take back to his apartment. I wasn't so thrilled about my choice of beverage; I tried horchata, which was a berry juice with milk (the waiter said it was Salvadorean and I really wanted to try some things I'd never had before), which I thought sounded good, but either it was too sweet, or I was too unsure whether he said almond milk (which some of the other drinks were made with) – I just couldn't get much of it down – luckily Al liked it and helped out, because I always feel bad not finishing something I've especially asked for. Everyone else enjoyed their lunches, too, though Nikki only ate the chips since she had just finished a sandwich she bought at Sheetz in Maryland. It was all pretty reasonable, too: $36 for the – well, I guess – 3 of us… reasonable for NW DC anyway.
After lunch, we helped Alex grocery-shop for the next week or so – I was so proud – he had a list written up and actual meals planned out involving actual cooking (spaghetti, crockpot sausage & peppers, etc). I think he'll be alright! He even has a Safeway shopper discount card! Though he did say after we got the total, that we weren't as careful shoppers as he usually was :-)
Then we carried all the bags up to his apartment and we put away the perishables while he checked online for info about the Spy Museum, which was what we had decided to do in the afternoon. And which he had been supposed to have researched prior to our arrival. Well, some things probably won't change ;-)
We met one of his roomies briefly, who seemed nice. They have the apartment arranged well, I think – and they've made good use of our ping pong table – they have one half folded up, and are using the other half as their dining table (and then of course if that were ever clean, they could play ping pong!). Alex gets to live in part of the living room (as opposed to one of the two bedrooms), so he and Nikki had gone to Home Depot in January when she took him down there, and he built a room divider with lumber and fabric (and using his construction experience gained at Castcon over the summer) - pretty nice actually! And the shelving unit constructed of cardboard boxes and duct tape was a great finishing touch!
So once we figured out how to get to the Spy Museum, we headed out to check in at our hotel first, since we'd be able to take the Metro or walk everywhere else that day. More posts to follow…
