Washington, DC. Day 1. Church on Sunday. — The Kaplan Family Follies

Today was a great day. We woke up early, made it out of the house by 9:15 and dropped Hallie off at my parents’ house. We called an Uber around 10:15 and we were off to LaGuardia. We made it to the airport around 10:45 and checked in for our flight to DC. The security line was ridiculously long, but thank God we had precheck, which still had a line, but much shorter. After giving the TSA agent both our tickets and IDs, the agent handed my license back to Tzvi and said “I think this one’s hers.” Tzvi said, “well, people do say we look alike,” to which the agent replied, “not that much, she doesn’t have a unibrow.” Nicely done TSA agent. Nicely done.

In the terminal we spent $17 to buy a banana, a box of grapes, a cottage cheese and a water bottle. We boarded our Delta flight and took off almost on time. The plane was tiny, only four seats across, and the turbulence was ridiculous. I really thought the plane was going to go down at one point.

We ended up landing about thirty minutes early, got our bags, called an Uber, and made it to our hotel by 2 o’clock. To step back a minute, we’re here until Wednesday. I’m here for the Israel on Campus Coalition conference that brings together campus professionals. Tzvi’s here because I have a free hotel room and he has an office in DC. He also has a client here that he’s going to visit, so he was able to make up a legit business purpose. We’re staying at The Line hotel in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of DC. The building is a beautiful converted church. Walking into the lobby you can actually tell that it was once the knave of a church. It’s actually pretty ironic that an Israel conference is being held at an old church. The hotel is very modern and has been ranked as one of the top boutique hotels in America by a number of different magazines/websites. We don’t have much of a view, but the room is nice. I’d say the main disappointment of the room is the really awful shower. It’s pretty, but there’s no pressure.

We quickly changed and then got an Uber to Georgetown. Our first stop was the America Eats Tavern, a fairly new restaurant from famous chef Jose Andres. It was late so the restaurant wasn’t very crowded. We started with an order of parker house rolls that were beautifully shiny (butter!) and an order of skillet corn bread. Both delicious. The rolls were like little tushies. For mains we shared a Caesar salad with grilled salmon and an order of bbq glazed salmon with okra, tomatoes and corn. Both were very good. Tzvi thought the okra was weird. For dessert we shared a giant warm chocolate chip cookie in a skillet with a scoop of really delicious vanilla bean ice cream. It was really good.

After lunch we walked around Georgetown and did a little shopping. We had spent a lot of time davening over what to do with our free afternoon. We debated museums and sightseeing, trying to figure out the best use of our time, but we eventually realized it wasn’t worth killing ourselves to squeeze in some attraction, and it was a better idea to just hang out and go shopping sans child. That ended up working out quite well. We had our glasses tightened and cleaned at Warby Parker. We bought macarons at a shop called Olivia (recommended by our concierge). We bought a bunch of sale stuff at J-crew. We got coffee at Blue Bottle Coffee. We also visited the Amazon bookstore. It was basically a regular bookstore that sold Amazon products too (though maybe the book selection was a bit more limited and curated). I’m pretty sure Amazon’s master plan was to create a website that would run all of the brick and mortar book stores out of business so they could open the only brick and mortar stores. Interestingly, if you had prime, the books were the same price as if you ordered online, so I have no idea how they’re making money (they’re probably not). As our last stop we went to a bakery called Baked and Wired (also recommended by the concierge). I got two cupcakes.

We called another Uber and headed back to the hotel. We’re too lazy to figure out public transit here and every Uber seems to be about $10, so we’ve just given in. Back at the hotel Tzvi rested (he hasn’t been feeling great) and I went to the gym. When I was done we tasted the desserts we had bought earlier in the day. The macarons were good, not great, but the cupcakes were solid. I had a strawberry one and a vanilla cake with caramel filling and chocolate frosting. Then we got dressed and ready for dinner and ended up leaving around 8.

We took an Uber (surprise) to the District Wharf, a fairly new waterfront development in south-east DC. When we had called the concierge earlier in the day to ask him what he thought of our plans, he told us not to go to the wharf. He said it was new and industrial and touristy. We decided not to listen to that an went anyway. Thank God we did because it was really nice. We walked along the water, saw nice views of the Washington Monument, got to swing on giant swings, and had an amazing Mexican dinner.

Dinner was at a restaurant called Mi Vida. The restaurant was really well designed and very stylish. When you walk in you’re greeted by a life sized tree. We started off with margaritas; I had a frozen margarita with mango, ginger, passionfruit and agave and Tzvi had a more traditional margarita with grand marnier, agave and orange. To start we shared guacamole, which was spicy, but delicious, and came with fantastic warm chips. We finished the entire thing of chips, and then they brought us another one. For the mains I had pumpkin seed-crusted salmon with sweet potato mash and pineapple-tomatillo salsa. Again, spicy but delicious. Tzvi had a roasted whole butterflied snapper that was painted one side in red adobo chili sauce and the other side with green adobo chili sauce. His also came with tomatillo salsa and black beans. He loved his fish. For sides we got roasted corn with cheese that Tzvi really liked, and roasted potatoes and string beans that had tiny crushed tortilla chips sprinkled over them. Also really tasty. For dessert we shared an order of churros that came with a chocolate sauce. The churros were crispy and flaky. All was really really good. Their bathroom was also ranked on a best bathroom list, but I didn’t think it was that amazing. There was a door, which already makes it lose points, and it just wasn’t the best. It was good, but not amazing.

After dinner we took an Uber back to the hotel and went to sleep as it was already after 11. We took 6 Ubers today. Great day.