We decided on Saturday evening to not try to get everyone up and going in time for 8:00 church Sunday, but rather to wait till the 4:00 Evensong service, which sounded kind of like something different anyway. So we planned instead to have a little earlier brunch with one of Alex's former roommates and his family who were in town for the weekend, and we left it up to the boys to arrange when and where (not easy for 9 people at the last minute for Easter Sunday brunch in the city…). Nik and I got up early enough for a light breakfast at the B&B; we had told our hostess Kristin the day before that we would not be having breakfast since we thought we were going to early church, but then when we decided not to do church, but rather brunch, we figured we still didn't want her to cook for us, but we did go down to the dining room for some excellent coffee, mango-orange juice, and cereal. We also got to meet our housemates, a couple from Connecticut (though really from Georgia), and a family from Washington state.
The boys decided on Cafe Deluxe in the Cleveland Park area, because we didn't need reservations for brunch, and we met Phil and his family there at 11:00. There was only a wait of a few minutes, very surprising, and the brunch was really very good! I had a mimosa and brioche french toast. A lot of the others had egg/omelet dishes; everyone liked what they had. We really enjoyed meeting Phil's family, and celebrating his mom's birthday. We talked a lot with his aunt about the school where she works, which sounded really interesting!
After lunch, we took Alex back to his place so he could work on his speech for class Monday night, and we went back to the B&B. Then we decided to take a little walk before it was time for church; we just looked on the map near our B&B, and found a little park about 7 blocks away, called Meridian Hill Park. It turned out to be a pretty interesting little city park, with lots of exposed aggregate balustrades and obelisks, a bronze statue of James Buchanan, and a very cool cascading fountain down the steep hillside (though the water wasn't running yet for the season. so people were climbing on it). There was a historical marker nearby that explained that 18th St got so steep in this area that the original DC city plan stopped here because horse-drawn carriages couldn't make the grade.
The various ornamental trees were in bloom, too, and the weather was just gorgeous, though cool and windy in the shade.
After we walked through the whole park, we headed back toward the B&B, but took a detour down U St to pick up some stuff we needed at the drug store. We also stopped for coffees at Love Cafe, which was a very cool (and apparently popular) place, affiliated with the CakeLove bakery across the street. I had a piece of lemon cake with my cappuccino, because I just had to try one of those delectable pieces of cake sitting there in the case!
Then it was time to get dressed back up, and pick Alex up for church. The Evensong service at the National Cathedral was a much different service than the early morning Festival services we've attended the past two years, mostly choral, and much more subdued. I was a little concerned when I saw in the program that we were all supposed to sing the creed and Lord's Prayer, but it turned out they were sung in monotone. After the service, we took a little walk around the Bishop's garden, which was very pretty, though the flowers weren't quite ready yet. If you've never been to the National Cathedral, you really owe it to yourself, it's quite an impressive edifice!
And then we went out for a traditional (haha) Easter sushi dinner at Murasaki in Tenleytown, very good! At Alex's suggestion, we had steamed edamame as an appetizer; also we had some very large Japanese beers (Asahi), and this was our shared plate (avocado maki, California roll, Crisp spicy tuna roll, Screaming spicy roll, Alaskan roll, and Spicy salmon roll):
The roll with the cilantro and red sauce was extremely hot, but they were all excellent!
A great end to a nice day!
Where have the days gone? 