D.C. Is Where I Wanna Be

For Columbus Day weekend, my girlfriend, M, and I drove down to Washington, D.C. to visit one of our best friends, E, who just moved there for grad school. It was a much needed mini-vacation.
We left early Friday morning. After 8 hours of driving with one-stop and hitting a bit of traffic just outside the city, we finally made it to D.C. around 4. We were all so excited to be reunited! There was shrieking and hugging and jumping! We unpacked the car, got the grand tour of her apartment, sat on her bed like old times at home and chatted for a bit, then wasted no time freshening up to hit downtown D.C. for happy hour!
By 5 o'clock we were ready to go! D.C. is like a smaller, less insane version of NYC, but driving was definitely not something any of us wanted to do in an unfamiliar city, so we took the bus or metro to get everywhere. The bus stop became our number one photo shoot backdrop.

We couldn't stop laughing the whole weekend! We had a blast! Me & M

M, E, and me

What I Wore:
Dress- Forever 21 (seen here)
Sweater- Charlotte Russe
Shoes- Cole Haan
Bad- H&M

Friday night was very successful. We found this amazing Irish pub called Mackey's that had awesome happy hour deals. We loaded up on half-priced delicious, greasy appetizers and $3 beers. A few hours later, we decided to find a new bar and some "suits." Suites is a term coined by E referencing men in suites. There are so many men in suits. It was a single girl's heaven. I take that back- it's every girl's heaven! But, with suites comes suit goggles- another term E came up. Think beer goggles, only suites. Haha!
We left the Irish pub around 8pm and decided to wander until we found another bar that looked promising. We made some friends while walking around, who invited us out with them. We ended up going to an incredible bar called The Mad Hatter. It was Alice in Wonderland themed. There were interesting pictures of the story everywhere! Definitely my favorite bar of the whole trip! We danced all night and even made friends with some suites who so graciously bought us drinks. Very successful evening.
Saturday was our touristy day. The weather was phenomenal. Eighty and sunny! The whole weekend was like that. We really lucked out because for the past few weeks D.C. had been rainy and cold. We started out with lunch at a new restaurant I read about before going to D.C. It's called the Shophouse and it's owned by the same man who opened Chipotle. It is the same concept as Chipotle, except instead of Mexican food, the Shophouse is Thai/Chinese cuisine. It was different from the usual Chinese food, but it was good.
Once we were finished eating, off we went sightseeing. The day was filled with beautiful monuments and buildings and lots of walking! But on such a gorgeous day, I didn't mind at all.

Beautiful fountain at Dupont Circle

At the WWII Memorial with Washington Monument in the background.
This is my favorite picture from the trip. :)

Fountains became the theme of the day. If we saw a fountain, we stopped for a photo opp.

The U.S. Capitol

What I Wore:
Top- Forever 21
Pants- J. Crew
Shoes- Cole Haan
Bag- H&M

Sunday Funday! When we first made plans to visit D.C., the three of us knew on Sunday we would definitely be going to a bar where we could watch our football team kick some butt! In order to find this bar, what did we do? We Googled it, of course! Google told us about this great bar called McFadden's. We ordered a few drinks and a HUGE appetizer platter with onion rings, mozz sticks, sweet potato fries, chicken wings, etc (clearly we were on a health kick) called The White House. And to top it off, our team won!!! Yay!!
Sunday was also the day for shopping! We ventured over to Georgetown, which is a small, wealthy hub of D.C. filled with great shops along a cobblestone road. Adorable. We went into so many shops such as Steve Madden, Lush, Sprinkles Cupcakes, Urban Outfitters, and Juicy Couture. I saw so many cute things! But I behaved... sort of... I went a little crazy at Lush. Haul coming soon!

Delicious cupcakes from Sprinkles!

Sunday night, we decided to go see the White House. The entire area around the White House is gorgeous. The buildings and streets are so beautiful. I think my favorite part about D.C. is that you get a big city feel without all the crazy hustle and bustle of a big city. And D.C. is SO clean! Honestly, I did not see trash anywhere on the ground. Too bad every city can't be like that. Around 1am, we called it a night and headed back towards E's apartment.
Monday morning came way too quickly. We woke up around 10 and made our way to this great crepe restaurant called Crepeaway where the three of us inhaled a sweet and a savory crepe. They were so good! And incredibly filling! I didn't eat again until halfway through the ride home later that night. Once we finished stuffing our faces, we walked around D.C. a bit more and stopped at the White House one last time to see it during the day. We were also hoping to see the president, but to no avail. We sat in front of the White House for about an hour people watching, chit chatting and making friends with one of the security guards until we decided we should go back to the apartment and start packing up to head home.

The ride home was bittersweet. The drive was gorgeous. The leaves are changing and looking out the window was like looking at a water color painting. The trip home went very smooth and rather quick compared to the drive there. Visiting E and spending the long weekend in D.C. was a great getaway. I can't wait to go back! I fell in love with D.C. and it is definitely a place I would move to in the future! I even looked at internship opportunities there!