DC TRIP

Here's a summary of Daniel, Donnie, and my trip to the Baltimore/DC area.  I fear as this entry progresses it will mostly be a review of what we ate.  Because we're American like that.

Day 1, October 29th, was a Friday and an all-day travel day.  Started the day off right and healthy with a grease-sogged sausage biscuit from Burger King in the airport, a half a turkey sandwich, apple juice, and a Dr. Pepper.  We weren't gonna be able to have any real food until like 830 pm East Coast time, so sue me. Nothing real eventful happened. Dave picked us up at the airport and we ate pizza that night at Johnny Rad's, a skateboarding-themed bar in Baltimore.  Some of the best pizza I've ever had.  Daniel played a little bit of the arcade game "720," which is some kind of Atari-style skateboarding video game that seems impossibe to navigate.

Day 2, October 30th, was Saturday and the day of the Rally to Restore Sanity/March to Keep Fear Alive.  We realized that we had forgotten to purchase red Karo corn syrup for our Zombie Tea-Partier costumes, so we all had a Clif bar for breakfast and a cup of coffee, then headed to Safeway for last minute zombie accoutrements. They didn't have any red Karo so I bought clear Karo and some red food coloring, cuz I'm MacGuyver like that.  Or because I have common sense and am really not all that smart.  We picked up Colleen and it was off to Greenbelt to catch the metro.  The line of ralliers flowed into the parking lot, but the Metro crew was savvy and had pre-paid tickets printed that you could buy with cash and the line moved lightning fast.  Luckily we got on at the beginning of the line and actually could board the train, because all subsequent stops were pretty much moot.... the trains were full and no one was getting off until the rally.

We got off the train, not yet be-garbed as zombies, but still carrying our zombie-style tea party signs, which were really more like zombie NRA signs, in retrospect.  Either way, I somewhat disagreed with our decision to display the signs before putting our make-up on, as I felt it was premature and the joke didn't make any sense without the makeup.  We found a spot on the lawn, about halfway to the stage (halfway through what was originally supposed to be the boundary of the rally), and put our makeup on.  People had great signs, great energy, and the rally itself was pretty funny and touching.  My criticisms include: I could have lived without the 40 minute concert by the Roots.  I hate rap and I couldn't really hear much of anything anyway.  In fact, I couldn't hear or understand much of the rally, which was a bummer, and I spent a lot of the like seven hours we were there just wishing I could find a place to take a shit and then a place to wash my hands and then a place to eat real food instead of granola bars.

Once the rally wrapped up, and we'd gotten our pictures taken by a bunch of people, and we'd finally made it out of DC, we wiped the zombification off our faces and headed to Five Guys, where I had the best burger of my life (second to the Mission Street Burger when it used to be fried in duck fat). We went home, totally and completely exhausted.  I took a nap, the boys watched youtube videos (or so they claim), then we vegged out and watched "The Strangers" and scared ourselves shitless.  This was followed by a quick speed-through of "Dead Snow," which is a movie about zombie Nazis in Norway, and was pretty goddamn horrible/fantastic. 

Day 3, October 31st, All Hallow's Eve, a Sunday, and my favorite holiday, we got up and had breakfast at Red Star.  It's a restaurant/bar that used to be a whorehouse once upon a time.  Or I guess the polite term is "bordello."  Either way, it was delicious.  We met up with Jason, and did a little putzing around, including going to a comic book/geek store.  Dave parted ways with us for a bit, and Donnie, Daniel, Jason and I went to the Visionary Art Museum, which is one museum in my Holy Trinity of museums that are my favorite places in the world.  It's a museum full of art by people who are not necessarily classically trained artists, including the mentally ill and the unintentional artist.  We then headed over to try to go to Cross St market in Baltimore, but most of it was closed, so we headed over to the Metropolitan, where we met up with Dave and had salads and the boys had beer.  While they were finishing their beers I walked a block to the drugstore and got myself some Utz cheese curls and a couple of candy bars.

After the bar, Jason went home and Dave, Daniel, Donnie and I went and picked up Colleen.  We all headed to a different bar (can't remember the name of this one) and played Chrononauts and watched a bit of Red Dragon, which was playing in the bar. Sleepiness was catching up to me at this point so I felt a little zombie-like.  We left the bar to go catch up with our reservations at Woodbury, which is Dave's favorite restaurant in Baltimore, and I can fucking see why.

The ambiance/decor was, to use a phrase coined by Dave, "Amish-chic."  Farm tables, beautiful tall windows, dark wood floors, brick walls, and antique faucets in the bathrooms. The building itself was an old mill, re-purposed for this restaurant.  The bathroom had real country farmhouse towels that you would use and then toss into a laundry basket under the sink.

We sat down to the most amazing meal.... which included two comp appetizers and ended with two comp desserts. They had heard us discussing getting certain things on the menu and then brought them out to us for free for us to try.  Amazing service, great atmosphere, incredible food.

We went home in a food haze and pretty much just called it a night.

Day 4, November 1st, a Monday and our day in Washington DC to see the sights.  We woke up, grabbed a quick breakfast at the local coffee shop, and then headed to the Greenline metro station again to begin our trip.  Along for the outing were Dave, Colleen, Donnie, and Daniel and me. Our first stop in DC was the Hirshhorn art museum. Then we headed over to my personal favorite stop on the tour: The Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian.  First things first, we ate at the motherfucking INCREDIBLE indigenous peoples cafe, with indigenous food from different regions of the world, categorized by country and region.  My god.  I had never had fry bread before, and it was like, where had this amazing food been all my life and how did I survive without it.

The museum itself was gorgeous... so well-organized, so respectful, so beautiful.  it was designed and curated mostly by people of Native American culture, and I felt that I was really learning from it.

We hit the National Air and Space museum next, which was fun, even if it was a little dated.  I learned how awesome the Wright Brothers were, and saw how shitty it would be to be an astronaut. "Feces collection bag"?????? No thank you.  I will stay on the Earth.

After museuming and seeing the Capitol Building, we headed for dinner at U Street.  I should mention that the weather in DC that day (cold and clear, sun out and low, orange light across the grass and red and yellow leaves on the trees.....) is the best weather ever, in my opinion.

It was dark when we got to U Street, and we headed straight for Ethiopian food at "Little Ethiopa," a subterranian restaurant.  It was friggin' awesome, with low tables you hunch over while you eat with your hands.  The waitress comes by before your food arrives and washes your hands with warm water from a silver teapot.  The food was delicious, especially the lamb.

After we got back from DC we went over to Colleen's house and watched a spoof movie while we drank.  It was a lovely evening.

Day 5, November 2nd, a Tuesday, marked our return to Oakland.  However, it was a fabulous start to our day when we went to Miss Shirley's for brunch, followed by Atomic Books for shopping.  Miss Shirley's was goddamn delicious.  I mean, Donnie had fried chicken and waffles, I had a brie/turkey/apple sandwich, Dave had friggin red velvet cake pancakes with frosting. 

Atomic Books is up there as one of my favorite bookstores of all time. I, of course, spent more than I should have, but all that shit was totally worth it.


It was a fucking fantastic trip.  Tiring, yes, but it was a good, satisfying tiring.  I can't wait to go back.