I went this weekend to visit Washington DC and that meant visiting the elusive Mr Ashley! He and his wife picked out a great Middle Eastern restaurant called Zatinya's that served mezzes (small dishes). The rice pilav was out of this world and everything else was wonderful too. I strongly recommend the restaurant. It had a large list of port wines for dessert so I was really disappointed that I was waaaay too stuffed to take advantage of that. It was somewhere around G Street and 9th Street.
Did a whirlwind tour of the new American Indian Museum (interesting but far too many people), and then off to the International Spy Museum. The spy museum is expensive, but worth every penny. We spent 3 hours there and could have spent another hour or 2 to see all the information at all the exhibits. The place was huge. Lots of displays, and lots of video monitors that showed information about all aspects of spying -- history, culture, tv, equipment, even a video that teaches you how to pick a lock. You start getting paranoid by the end because of all the 1-way mirrors and video cameras that they put along the way. Sometimes you are on the viewing side, and sometimes on the being-viewed side and they even have a point where you can stop and listen to a couple rooms earlier in the tour that they have bugged.
Saturday was a shopping trip to G Street Fabrics! John did a great job 'sherpa-ing' fabric bolts as I forged ahead on my quest for the perfect fabric. I picked out bolts and John lugged them along for me. I don't know if I'm getting more snobby or if the quality is going down at G Street but I could only find a couple fabrics that really called to me to take home (lucky for my poor sherpa). Unfortunately, the ones that called the loudest were the cashmere-wool blends that I had to fondle and then put back on the shelf because I can't justify spending $70/yard for fabric that will realistically sit on a shelf in my sewing room. I'm impressed with John's patience while he followed me from one side of the store to the other. And then wait while the store clerk and I pull out bunches of fabric pieces trying to find the two that were the closest color/softness match to each other. I still managed to buy enough fabric that it was tough to get my suitcases closed AND zipped for the trip home. And as if he hadn't had enough fiber shopping, he drove me off in search of a yarn store to try to track down some specific knitting needles. AND let me loose in a science fiction used book store. What a great day!
The day ended with John dropping me off at another friend's house in Alexandria. After attempting to follow the directions given to us by the friend (a DC expressway designer), I now understand why DC has such confusing expressways. After 3 cell phone calls to the friend (each time we found ourselves at a dead end or crossing roads that weren't supposed to be there) we finally arrived at his house and discovered that the directions he kept giving us had us turning from one road onto another road, but the the two roads in question never intersect. Um... Right! LOL.
Got home Sunday night and got my baggage from baggage claim. I don't know what the airport screeners have against electric razors. Every time I come home, I find my electric razor has been completely disassembled. It's intact when I get to my destination, its always disassembled when I come home. Last time they sealed it back up in my suitcase, still running. At least this time it was turned off, but they even took the razorblade out of the internal head component. And one of the screeners must have been hungry. They cut open one of my bags of chocolate truffles that was in the side pocket of my checked suitcase.
