Monday, May 7, 2012

Weekend Report: Parents, Founding Farmers, and Embassy Tours


What a week/weekend! My parents were visiting last Monday-Sunday, which meant excellent food, the usual tourism, and fun family-time activities. My mama has been to DC twice already, but this was my dad’s first visit. I’m pretty sure his favorite part was our Segway tour on Friday (since it meant he didn’t have to walk).



Here’s a rundown of the highlights:
Our most excellent dinner was at Founding Farmers, a restaurant where you have to plan in advance for a reservation, or show up at 5:30 to get your name in before the dinner rush. We started with the Devil-ish Egg appetizer (the only context in which I will gladly eat mayonnaise). 



Then Mama went for Chicken and Waffles (when in the kinda-sort-almost-South…right?), Dad got Black Pepper Gnocchi and Sausage, and I got Skirt Steak and Enchilada. Everything was delicious, the enchiladas were chicken/spinach/cheese and would have made a solid meal on their own, and the fried chicken was fantastically chicken-y! 




So. Much. Food. Clearly we ate it all – my family takes dinner seriously.



Plus we needed the fuel for our evening Monuments walk. DC brought the humidity for my parents’ visit, but by dark-time it was pleasant enough walking around the Lincoln, MLK, and the WWI Memorials. 




The next morning the Segways happened, as you may recall.




My dad left long before the crack of dawn on Saturday, but Mama stayed for another day. We started by splitting the Blueberry Buckwheat Pancakes at Market Lunch in Eastern Market. 




Then we metro’d up to Van Ness for Passport DC’s Around the World Embassy Tour day. I’ve done this a few times (last year, and the year before), but only the embassies near Dupont, which are always  sooooo crowded. 




Van Ness is further out though, meaning there were absolutely no lines – we walked right into South Africa, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, Ghana, Turkey, Nigeria, and Egypt. 



(The staircase is in the Ghanaian embassy, the mural is from Nigeria, and the other pictures are from Egypt, obviously.)



Sunday morning my Mama left, ending my staycation and leaving me to handle my life – aka go to Ikea, buy a bed (which SpeedyKate and I successfully tied to the roof of her car, transported back to DC, and carried up and then downstairs into my new bedroom! #winning), and start packing up my apartment for the big move next weekend. 




Hope you had a great week/weekend too!