DC Report

Brock and I just got back from a long trip to Washington, D.C. It was our bar trip (for those not in the law school loop, people often take trips after they take the bar but before they begin working, hence "bar trip") and also what I consider our second honeymoon. I did an internship in DC when I was in college (4.5 years ago!) and hadn't been back since. Brock had never been, so I was so excited to show him around. Getting on the Metro right after we landed and hearing the automated voice say "doors closing" made me so nostalgic. I really felt like if I closed my eyes and focused hard enough, I would find myself 21 again, figuring out how to be an adult and becoming the person I was meant to be. It made me so overwhelmingly happy.

It was an amazing trip. Here are some thoughts and pictures:

-We walked everywhere and it felt great. Something I remembered from living in DC was how walkable everything is. If the Metro didn't get you exactly where you needed to go, walking 20 or 30 minutes wasn't a big deal at all. I found it to be true again this time too. The first few days, we took the Metro, but by the fourth day we just walked wherever we were going. It would take 40 minutes to get downtown (or an hour to get to Georgetown) but that was part of the fun. We loved looking at the changing neighborhoods and fun restaurants.

An side effect of all that walking. Brock said he took this so we would remember what our trip was really like- me stopping to fix my socks every 10 minutes. Ps- Behind me is the new African-American Museum. It just opened this week!

-Brock and I travel well together. It's something I knew before this, of course, but it's always nice to have it reinforced. We both love museums and trying new places to eat, and have so many overlapping interests. It was so fun to be together without any real responsibilities and we really fell more in love on this trip.

-We got to meet up with my college bestie Laurie and her husband Gerhard! I hadn't seen Laurie in years and it was so good to see her again. Since Brock and I just moved to a new area I haven't really made any new friends yet which made it all the better to talk to someone who knew me well. It was just a great way to connect and our conversations together were so fascinating. Definitely a highlight of the trip.

I bet if I looked through Facebook long enough I could find a ton more pictures of us in this exact pose. 

-We stayed in the Bloomingdale/LeDroit Park area in a little basement apartment from Airbnb. It was an interesting side of DC that I hadn't seen when I lived there. It had amazing old row houses and fun restaurants. It actually reminded us a lot of where we lived in Chicago, right down to the nonstop sirens, so that made us feel right at home.

-It was a crazy feeling to be walking around or on a bus and suddenly see something that I clearly remembered from my internship days but that I had completely forgotten. This happened with multiple bookstores and the whole Adams Morgan neighborhood- an "Oh! I've been here before!" moment. It was so fun.

Barlow Center! Where I lived while in DC

-Even though I had lived in DC before there was still a lot of things that I hadn't done, which made it all the more fun to do with Brock. Somehow I had never been to the zoo, which is crazy, but again, was so fun to do with Brock. He is a HUGE animal lover and has turned me into one too, so we try to go to all the zoos we can. And this zoo was amazing- plus, we happened to be in the reptile house during feeding time and saw all the snakes eating their mice/rats! I understand that some people would find this revolting, but Brock and I thought that we had the best of luck to happen upon that. It was so cool. 

Other places we went together where I hadn't been include the Botanic Gardens (so beautiful), the American Indian Museum (slightly boring), and the Supreme Court (which was cool but a million times cooler for Brock, obviously).

Making Brock's dreams come true at the Supreme Court. 

-I was so sad to leave because it kind of felt that our trip had become our new life. I would forget for hours at a time that I had a son and that we actually lived in California and not in the capital. It's been good to come back and so wonderful to reunite with James (he's grown up so much in the past week), but I know that I will always treasure that time together. It's a good thing we have a million new inside jokes and two weeks before Brock starts work so it's not too jarring of a transition.