After spending four days cooped up inside Caesars Palace and Casino where the work conference that had brought me to Las Vegas was taking place, I just really wanted to spend some time outdoors, even if that meant braving a 102 degree heat for a few hours. I had rented a car and planned to drive out to Red Rock some 20 miles west of the city. But I got lost and instead found myself downtown. What can I say... I'm a city girl. I somehow always wound up downtown ;-) Turned out the area looked pretty interesting with its boarded up old motels and retro signs decaying in the sun. Then I spotted an interesting mural and that sealed the deal. I parked my rental car, badly apparently since I got a ...
Around the USA
Liberty Enlightening the World… For 130 Years
Did you know that the Statue of Liberty, this universal symbol of freedom, is technically French? Yep, one of America’s most iconic monuments was born in France to Mr. Frederic Bartholdi, a French sculptor who modeled her after his mother, and given to the people of America as a gift of friendship from the French people. 130 years ago today, she arrived in new York Harbour after a long trip across the Atlantic Ocean in 350 individual pieces. These pieces took about a year to be reassembled and the 450,000-pound statue was officially dedicated on October 28, 1886, by President Cleveland. To celebrate the anniversary of the Statue of Liberty's arrival in the United States, google created a ...
Museum Open Houses in Old Town for Lafayette in Alexandria Day + Tour the Hermione
In a previous post, I wrote about the return voyage of l'Hermione, the Frigate of Freedom, that delivered the young Marquis de Lafayette in 1780 to General Washington with full French aid. Well... it's not exactly a return voyage since the ship is a replica, but it's an authentically reconstructed one, 17 years in the re-making. After sailing 3,819 miles across the Atlantic, she's about to land in Yorktown, just like Lafayette did 235 years. Her next stop after that is Mount Vernon and Alexandria, both in Virginia. While she isn't docking in Old Town until June 10th, the city is already rolling out the red carpet and building up the excitement with a Lafayette in Alexandria Day May 31st. ...
Hermione & the Spirit of Lafayette Back in the US
Nope, I'm not talking about a Hermione Granger, the Harry Potter character, but Hermione, the Frigate of Freedom, a ship. The replica of the ship that brought the Marquis de Lafayette to the United State some 235 years ago to carry the message from King Louis XVI that France was going to aid the colonies. In 1997, a group of people came up with the idea of reconstructing the frigate using the same building methods applied in the original. Some 17 years later, on April 18, 2015, she left Rochefort in France to set sail for Virginia and retrace a journey through American history. For the past month, L'Hermione plied across the Atlantic, retracing Lafayette's journey. She's set to arrive in ...
Pick Your Own Tulips at Burnside Farms
Tulips are a beautiful symbol of spring. In Washington, tulips typically bloom right after the cherry blossoms have come and gone, but they were a little late this year, probably because we've had such a cold spring. Over the past 2 weeks though, their vibrant colours have been on full display across the city. And just outside of the District, a quick 45 minutes drive away, a farm in Haymarket, Virginia, plays host to one of largest pick-your-own tulips festival in the United States. Nicknamed "Holland in Haymarket," the festival typically runs late April to mid-May, depending on when the flowers actually bloom. Visitors pay an entrance fee of $3.00, and then there's a cost per stem ...
N Street Murals Project: 3 Buildings, 3 Artists
March 14 was a miserable day for a run. On top of that, the winter had dragged on so my husband's hadn't trained outdoors as much as he had wanted to. But rain or shine, in this case rain and lots of it, the D.C. Rock'n Roll marathon and half marathon was happening, and my husband was running it. And that could mean only one thing for me... I'd be out there cheering. My favourite spot on the route is right across the street from NPR, since that's an easy marker and it's close enough to home. After I spotted my favourite runner, I decided to make a detour and swing by the new(ish) Unleashed by Petco store in NoMa on my way home. And that's when I spotted a bright mural taking up an entire ...
A Recap of Art & Soul’s Second Biscuit Bash
Biscuit Bash, a biscuit-themed friendly cook-off benefiting D.C. Central Kitchen and Share Our Strength's No Kid Hungry campaign, returned to Art and Soul's patio last night. For its second year, the fundraiser sold out quickly (obviously, word got out that this is a can't-miss delicious event for an awesome cause!) prompting the organizers to close off the restaurant for the evening to allow more people to attend. Chef Hamilton Johnson of Vidalia, whose biscuit took the top prize last year, returned to defend its title. Otherwise all the restaurants and chefs biscuit bashing yesterday were new to the friendly competition. This year, Vidalia's biscuit was slightly less messy, though is was ...
Five (French) Reasons to Visit City Center DC
I've lived in downtown-DC long enough to have seen multiple incarnations of the area now known as City Center DC. First, it was the former convention center, which I saw being demolished back in 2004. Then it was a municipal parking lot, where Megabuses and Bolt Buses would load and unload passengers. It was the site of Cirque du Soleil, Kastles tennis matches and a Trapeze school. And then it was a construction site for a while... Today, it's a luxurious mixed use space, with more than 185,000 square feet of retail space situated on the ground floor of six buildings that include both rental apartment units and condominiums, as well as office space. Seattle-based Gustafson Guthrie Nichol, ...
VinoFest DC: Music, Wine, Food, Charity
My! How Vinolovers has grown? It feels like not too long ago, I was attending the D.C. startup's launch party at 1776 (see pictures below) and now they're throwing VinoFest DC, a huge wine and music festival at a venue so cool I haven't even heard of it yet. Let me backtrack... Vinolovers is a DC-based personalized wine subscription and delivery service and this is their second year hosting VinoFest DC actually. Last year's event was held at Union Market, and on Saturday, May 9, wine producers, musicians, DJs and of course, vinolovers, will take over Storey Park in NoMa. If you've been in the city for a while like I have you may remember that place as the former Greyhound bus station. ...
DC en rose: Cherry Blossoms Season in DC
I don't typically gush up over a few pink petals like this, but I've been pretty swept up in the citywide cherry blossoms celebration this year. I blame my eagerness to switch from red wine to rosé at the end of a long winter ;-) Usually, I find the whole festival annoying: local restaurants and bars stretch their menus to add cherries to everything (need I mention the cherry trees in DC don't actually produce cherries?), tourists take over the streets with their selfie sticks and, worst of all, my sinuses go nuts from the pollen influx. But this year, I'm got really into it and I just can't get enough pink. I too have caught cherry blossoms fever! Here is some of what I enjoyed this ...
