Unlimited Tapas

For spring break I went to DC to visit former GSHPA coworker Kate (you may remember her as a guest blogger when I was on vacation one time. She posted some very apathetic letters of apology.)

It was a great couple of days, and I'll just pull out some of the highlights.

I arrived there Tuesday afternoon and Kate warned me almost as soon as I arrived that we were going to "Girl's Night" with her friends and that the girl in charge of the dinner that evening can't cook and usually doesn't make enough food. "We can stop on the way home for something to eat." But it turned out great, there were lots of funny topics of conversation: rubber pants, the musical stylings of Robert Pattinson, the ineptitude of the federal government, one of the friends singing in the bathroom, and several other things that I'm sure I've blocked from my memory. We gave one of the girls a ride to her apartment building and as we were pulling away police were suddenly swarming and blocking off streets. Apparently just after we left there was a shooting on the block. The real DC experience.

The next topic that I feel the need to discuss is Kate's dog, Rosie.

She looks innocent doesn't she? Rosie is a rat terrier/jack russell mix. When I was four or five, my dad brought home a rat terrier. We named her Teela (I really like He-Man and Teela was the girl on He-Man). Anyway, rat terriers are CRAZY. However, I already knew this, so I knew when Rosie would growl while holding her toy that she really just wanted to play tug of war or that when she ran laps around the living room at break neck speed that that was normal. Kate's other friends are scared of Rosie and because I wasn't (or just because I have a glowing golden aura) I became Rosie's new best friend. One day we came home from wherever and Kate let Rosie out of her pen in the kitchen. Rosie rand right past Kate and jumped on me.

Wednesday evening we took the Metro in for dinner. I got yelled at by some lady because I was apparently in her way. Then on the way home on the Metro Kate got told that her feet were "as pretty as your face." She had painted her toenails day glo pink, but upon further discussion we discovered the woman was actually talking about the way her toes were shaped. Bizarre.

So for dinner on Wednesday we went for $1 sushi at Epicurean and Company. Yes, $1 sushi. It does sound too good to be true, doesn't it? Then we followed that up with dessert and drinks at Kramer's (and possibly some crab nachos as well). So so good.

The next day we went for UNLIMITED TAPAS for lunch at La Tasca in Chinatown.

(You can see Kate's day glo nails in the picture). We originally were going to take the metro, but the lot at the metro station was full (Kate basically paid $4.50 to drive around the parking garage) so we just drove to Chinatown. I can not even put into words right now how good unlimited tapas was. My mouth is watering as I'm trying to describe the various dishes we had. There was some cheesy bread (which we didn't actually order, but they brought anyway), fried potatoes, paella, chicken croquettas, chorizo, shrimp and bacon wrapped scallops, and a tomato salad. It also included dessert. I got basically a vat of rice pudding.

We also had a berry champagne sangria (it's the Cava Sangria on the wine list) which was unbelievably good. It had all these blueberries in it, but they were on the bottom of the pitcher. So when I took the last glass of sangria, I left half of the berries there for Kate, but our waitress swooped down and took them.

Then we went to Potomac Mills shopping. I LOVE this mall. Next time I go though, I'm taking a tent to take a little nap in halfway through because we were exhausted. I bought lots of cute things (obviously), but more importantly is what I didn't buy that I'm now kinda regretting. At Nordstrom RACK (rack is in capitals because that's how it was on the sign and when I would say it I would yell RACK) I found this pair of neon green 4 1/4" heel Jimmy Choo's in my size that after discount would've been $70 (original price $539). However, I realized the total cost of ownership would've been much higher since I would've undoubtedly broken my ankle. I'm regretting not getting them, but I'm pretty sure I would've regretted getting them as well.

After much shopping, we were still not really hungry because of unlimited tapas, so on the way home we stopped at IceBerry, which is a PinkBerry knockoff. It was still yummy. I had honeydew frozen yogurt with mango, pineapple and coconut. While Kate was ordering I saw a brochure holder for Dahn yoga. I told Kate that I thought I had seen Dahn yoga on The Secret Lives of Women and was pretty sure that it was a cult. We looked it up. It is. So Kate's frozen yogurt place may also be recruiting for a cult.

Thursday I drove home. I finished listening to my book on CD, Water for Elephants, which is pretty good except the graphic scenes of circus freak sex kinda weirds me out and also there are some pretty sad parts and crying while driving on the highway isn't so good.