it's not the spectacles the pagaentry the thousands things you've got to see

For only the second day since I arrived the weather in BA is really crummy. Skies are grey, it’s been lightly drizzling all day and the high humidity is making it feel even colder than its approximately 55 degrees. The somewhat Boston-like weather got me thinking about how it’s going to be summer when I come home which reminded me of the fact that I have neglected to mention what I will be up to this summer. Whoops.

I will be interning in the External Affairs department of the Center for American Progress hopefully working on legislative outreach (aka lobbying big scary word) but probably working on email contact management.

I am super stoked to be in DC again! I put together a rundown of my favorite things after last summer but there’s still plenty I am excited about for this upcoming summer.

On the agenda:
Now that I am 21+, I am stoked to start exploring H St. NE. Can’t wait to hang out at the H St Country Club, eat jumbalaya and while taking in Farina family member bands at the Red and the Black, and you know be old enough for shows at the Rock n Roll Hotel. I couldn’t really do anything cool over there last year because I was a young’n but thanks to a birthday that is otherwise meaningless to me I can start seeing some new places.

Food I haven’t yet eaten: Ray’s Hell Burger, Dairy Godmother, all of the schwarma places in Adam’s Morgan I seem to have missed at which I hopefully can eat Old Bay fries, and DC’s apparent explosion of cupcake-mania. And old favorites like BCB, Old Ebbitt Express, Taqueria Nacionale, San Miguel’s Pupuseria, Amsterdam, and 2 Amys where I eat cheap and well. Mmm already excited for restaurant week in August!

EATING BAGELS. I just miss bagels. I asked Fedex this weekend and he told me they don’t exist here. I don’t think I have had a good New York bagel in DC but apparently Montreal style bagels are coming which is sufficient, as I anxiously await a something bagel-like to enjoy.

I can't wait for: softball by the monument, summertime in DC jamming to the Bad Brains, walking past a Democratic contrilled White House and Congress, visiting and re-visiting Jefferson's draft of the Declaration of Independence with Adams's notes in the margins, hardcore shows at the Corpse Fortress, making fun of the line at Smith point, the summer 09 Fort Reno line up and jazz in the Sculpture Garden, outdoor movies, and just walking up and down and up and down and up and down Embassy Row (and this time getting to make fun of Joe Biden instead of Dick Cheney).

amped!

RUNDOWN: shana's guide to summer in dc

I typed this up for a friend who was doing a semester in DC and have sent it around to a few fols. It's a good wrap-up of why I loved my summer in DC with Andrea so damn much. 

1. Go to Amsterdam Falafel in Adam's Morgan (metro to Woodley Park/Adam's Morgan/National Zoo or walk from Dupont). Really cheap + toppings bar + SUPER DELICIOUS = worth it!! A-M has lots of somewhat gross nightlife (think: young professionals wishing they were still in college) but also the only really good record stores (Smash for punk/hardcore, Crooked Beat for Dischord early presses) and some bars that don't suck.

2. U St, the historically black neighborhood in DC, is awesome.... Ben's Chilli Bowl at 11th and U (right near the 10th St. exit for the U St. metro) is the only restaurant that serves indigenously DC food: the chilli half-smoke, a chilli hot dog. It is highly representative that the first time I went to BCB Marion Barry was also there. For real. U st. is also home to DC's Ethiopian community. Dukem is the touristy Ethiopian place -- I enjoyed Meskerem in Adam's Morgan more, I think. You MUST eat Ethiopian in DC; the diaspora population in DC is the largest group of Ethiopians outside of their native state. IN addition, U St. is home to Busboys and Poets, which hosts book readings, slam poetry, jazz bands, and serves great dessert.

3. Go to Mt Pleasant. Excellent cheap Hispanic foodz. In particular, Pupuseria San Miguel was a favorite of ours. (FYI pupusas are Salvadorean corn cakes with cheese, beans, and pork that are deep-fried quickly so the cheese is maaaad gooey. Very tasty.) Mt Pleasant is not as far along the gentrification process as U St but they just built a Target in neighboring Columbia Heights so it's progressing quite rapidly. Mt. Pleasant is my preferred locale if I ever move back to DC.

4. I strongly believe that ice cream is the only reason to go to Georgetown. Thomas Sweet aka TSWEETZ, Dolcezza (Argentine gelato) (both cira Wisconsin and P), and Max's (northern Georgetown, Wisconsin near Calvert) are three of the best ice cream places in DC and they're all so close to one another.

5. I know it's expensive but the Newseum is well worth its price. My parents and I spent 4 hours there and barely got through 3 floors. They have a huge and amazing exhibit on the photographs to win Pulitzer Prizes including interviews with the photographers and captions explaining their stories. The top floor, the history of news, was fascinating and contains original copies of Thomas Paine newsletters, the Dewey Defeats Truman Chicago Daily News, etc.

6. Go to Eastern Market to eat food (softshell crab sandwich with Old Bay Spice highly rec), walk around the barracks, then head to RFK for a DC United game and love your life. If you are brave and like jumping on your chairs -- recuerde que los que no saltan son hijos de puta! -- sit in the Barra Brava pit above the 130's section. Most fun you'll have all summer, I promise. I don't really care about soccer but I went to three (four?) games and loved every second of them.

7. Every Monday and Thursday (I think) there are free concerts from some of DC's best local bands at Ft Reno Park in Tenleytown. Meet some friends after work at Whole Foods near the metro stop, make a picnic dinner, then enjoy the sweet jamz, puppies, and babies that abound amongst the hipsters. Cheap and fun!

the inauguration!

First, I should say that I just love DC. I miss it all of the time, seriously. I don't think that there is just one person out there for everyone or just one place that each person should live in but I do feel strongly that DC is the city for me right now. 

I loved it even though it was extaordinary and extremely crowded. I did not make it to U St, the gentrifying faster than one can say gentification historically black neighborhood (and one of my favorite areas in the city). In retrospect I definitely should have but I knew BCB would be packed-- I heard that lines were apparently three blocks long due to Mayor Fenty and PEOTUS Obama's appearance -- and although I thought it would have been jammin to hit up Busboys and Poets this week, I didn't really get a chance. But I did get to hang out in many of my old haunts while I was in town. That, needless to say, made me very happy. 

Sunday we came into Union Station and it was packed with people, mostly African-American tourists from out of town. Excitement permeated. We ran some errands (aka picked up ball tickets!) which brought me to Mount Vernon Sq for the first time. Previously in my mind it had just been the place where that British tourist was killed during a robbery when he thought it was the location of GW's house slash that stop on the green line that always seemed to extend the already irritatingly long trip out to U St. and Columbia Heights. Nothing is really there but the convention center but it was surprisingly pretty! 

Then my friends David and I had some dinner with Bobito at Good Stuff Eatery. OKAY, I totally undersell Capitol Hill. Because I lived in NW for the summer, I really didn't explore this area enough except for one actually very entertaining trip to the Hawk'n'Dove. (I should note that the first time I wrote that sentence, I said it was lame. Sorry Andrea, Helms, and Meems.) As for Good Stuff Eatery, it is Spike from Top Chef's new joint. I thought the roll was excellent and the burger's special sauce was pretty jammin' but it wasn't super special.

Monday morning David and I went to a breakfast at Ballou in Anacostia sponsored by Service Nation. Originally our two Ethiopian (aka haven't left NW) cab drivers didn't know how to get us there but we fortunately ended up bumping into some folks on the Metro and found the shuttle. I saw lots of Tufts people I had met over the summer there, including the ever-amazing Deb Jospin, and witnessed great speeches by MLK Jr III and John Lewis (my love for him knows no bounds). Toby McGuire went on after John Lewis and made a total fool of himself because he was tearing up, hadn't prepared remarks, etc., and it was pretty awkward. Then we went to RFK STADIUM where I proceeded to David to the point of annoying him about BEN-EE OLSEN, Luciano Emilio, Jaime Moreno, the Barra Brava, and DC UNITED info galore. (One of the things I happened to fall in love with about DC last summer was its MLS Soccer team DC United. Hat tip to Helmsy.) My enthusiasm was not contagious. We helped pack care packages to servicemembers in Iraq as part of the the president's call for service. 

Afterwards, we went to the Hill to pick up our tickets for the inauguration and no joke there were 1.5ish hour lines at all of the entrances to Cannon. There are four. Ugh. Rather than wait, we asked our respective MC's staff to meet us with the tickets, got some tacos at Taqueria Nacionale (yummmmm, another of my favorite things about DC), and saw the following people enter NBC's satallite studio for hits: PA Gov Ed Rendell, Mayor Mike Bloomberg, John Lewis, and Karl Rove. I seriously think we could have sat there for longer if it weren't so cold and if our excellent Tufts friends hadn't come to meet us. 

TUESDAY we woke up at CRAZY OCLOCK aka 4:15 to go to the inauguration. The day had a hilarious start which I will share on a person-to-person basis but not on the blog. The Metro was packed even that early, around 5:30, crazily enough. We got to Fed Center around 6:15, huddled in the cold until staking out an awesome spot on the front left corner of the reflecting pool where I could see his balcony (barely) and a giant teleprompter (hey-ooo). The speech was great and sharing it with such inspired people -- many middle aged African-Americans -- was just awesome. Definitely made all of those hours in the cold worth it. 

After the inauguration, getting around the city made me want to die. It was packed, you couldn't cross Constitution because of the parade route, and it was nearly impossible to get to and then around in NW. It took 2.5 hrs to get from 3rd and Constitution NW to 15th and G NW because we kept getting sent in different directions. Finally we made it to the party at NDN where I met the Tufts provost (?) and saw a bunch of Tufts people. Later we went to the youth ball. KANYE PLAYED and the Obamas came, made kissyface (oh man I know!), and were just generally awesome. It was otherwise not that great, though I did laugh a lot at Fall Out Boy who also played. Pete Wentz is officially no more than 5'8, I think probably more like 5'6. He sucks a lot.

On my last day in DC Bobby and I went to Amsterdam Falafel where I participated in another of my favorite DC traditions, french fries with Old Bay Spice, and then I saw Stella, and we talked about religion for hours. This is a subject I am interested in discussing if you catch me on the telephone.