We got a good start Saturday morning, got out the door by 6:30, stopped for our coffees at 7:00 in Cranberry, and headed out the turnpike with our new friend Lori (the TomTom One) guiding us. Of course, we already knew where we were going, but she's new, and we just wanted to put her through her paces. She said we would arrive at 11:40, which eventually was revised to 11:20 once she realized the speed at which some of us drive :-) Unfortunately, it started to rain after about a half an hour, and it never let up till we got to DC.
Best part of the trip: seeing and hugging our two kiddos for the first time since January! After we all met up, we went to 2Amys near Tenleytown for lunch. Excellent, excellent! We ordered 3 pizze: Etna (eggplant/olive/caper), Vongole (cockles/capers), and Norcia (salami/grilled peppers). All the pizze are baked in the wood-fired oven, and had delicious crusts!
We also had some good beers: Moretti, and Weihenstephan. And dessert: I had the marsala custard, which was really tasty (very wine-y and unusual); we ordered a cookie/biscotti platter; and of course espressos all around.
After lunch, we followed Lori's instructions to Akwaaba to check in (more on the B&B later, but it's great!), and then we relaxed there for the rest of the afternoon. Meanwhile, the weather turned very nice and sunny (though still fairly cool), so we decided to walk the mile to dinner in Adams Morgan. We left a little early, and stopped at Idle Time Books to pick up some reading material for the rest of the weekend. It's a really cool bookshop, with lots of used and unusual books to rummage through. I bought two in German (Pride & Prejudice, and a collection of folk tales), and something for my sister. Alex found some sort of esoteric economics book, and Nik got Utopia and some really cool cards.
Another highlight of the day was meeting Emjay and her husband "in real life" for dinner at Meskerem, an Ethopian restaurant. Great food (lots involving lamb, various sauces, lentils, potatoes, etc), all served on a big round piece of teff bread, with more bread to scoop it up with. Take a trip over to Emjay's blog – she has lots more information about the food! We had eaten here in the summer of '05, when we doing the college tour thing, and we had really liked it a lot, so I thought it was time to try it again. I really enjoyed meeting Emjay, we learned a lot about telescopes and such from her hubby, and she & Alex talked about Australia.
It's always fun to put a face with a name, especially when you've already learned so much about someone from their blog…
Where have the days gone? 