There were 6 days of intense political action that blew my mind. I took a redeye into Reagan National (just National if you're of a blue persuasion, apparently, which I didn't know at first and called it Reagan - I was semi-publicly shamed for it, so keep that in mind if you ever fly into DCA) and got in at 11am Eastern. Reiny (this year's program director) and I were on the same flight and shared a cab to the hotel in Arlington.
We stayed at the Westin Arlington Gateway, which is a lovely hotel two blocks from the Ballston stop on the Orange and Silver lines. Great rates can be found for it on Priceline, and I recommend it as an upscale hotel just close enough to DC. Uber rates from the hotel into DC range from $15-$30 depending on what time you go, and the Metro ride is under $4 each way.
Anyway. They were very kind and let us check in several hours early, which was so wonderful, and we napped/unpacked for a couple of hours. Each of our rooms had 3-4 people in them, so it was great to have that time alone before my roommates arrived. I was in a 3 person room, but our third person didn't arrive until Wednesday afternoon, so we each had a bed to ourselves for the first two days.
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| Our hotel room before it got covered in clothes and toiletries |
There was a Starbucks in the lobby area of the hotel, which was where we all got our breakfasts most mornings and then congregated before we left for our totally packed days in DC. That particular Starbucks was SO SLOW that we had to get there at least 20 minutes before leaving if we wanted to be done with our breakfast when we walked to the Metro. I was so lucky to have a very courteous and thoughful roommate who was up earlier than I and always offered to pick up breakfast. Thanks Shannon!
But, that first day was a travel day and most people weren't arriving until later in the afternoon, so Reiny and I went out in search of a happy hour situation to sate our growing hunger. We were invited to join some of the fellows in the city for happy hour, and also invited to one of our fellows' family home while he cooked some of the dinner we were going to enjoy on Wednesday, but they were both so far... we ended up finding a little Tex-Mex restaurant by our Metro station with a nice patio and sat out there eating quesadillas and drinking strawberry-mint margaritas (SO GOOD!) until more of the cohort arrived and we all met back at the hotel.
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| These were like candy! Refreshing, tequila-filled candy. |
I went with some people into the city to a divey bar called Big Hunt, where we had a great time out on their deck with good craft beers and, randomly, pizza. Then we wandered through DuPont Circle to U Street to a couple of other locations (I heard one of my friends say their FitBit tracked us walking almost 10 miles that day) and eventually migrated back to the hotel area, where we all congregated at a sports bar called Front Page, which ended up being our home bar for the rest of the trip.
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| This is the Starbucks in DuPont Circle where Kirsten and I used to hang out! |
It was two blocks from the hotel, with good prices, a kitchen open late, attentive service even to our 20-person group, decent music, good patio... a traveling group can hardly ask for more. Of course we closed down the place and all of us made our way back to the hotel. The conversations we had on the patio of that bar were some of the best parts of the trip. I would also like to note that the entire day was t-shirt weather, until we got back to the hotel. I think it got up to 81 that day, but I barely noticed.
If only the rest of the days were like that...
