Only In DC

When Alex and I were in California, we had very "LA Dates." Eating at Asian Tapas places, watching celebrities perform at the Laugh Factory, taking walks on the beach to find hippie drum circles in Venice, winetasting, etc. So it was only fitting that when he came to visit in DC, that we had a quintessential DC Date.

We first had sunset dinner along the Potomac River and watched rowers and little speedboats. Then we went to the Kennedy Center, which looks absolutely beautiful at night, to see a musical called "A Ride with Bob." As we were walking up, there was an intense motorcade with guys sitting in the back of black suburbans armed with huge guns. I figured that some big dignitary was attending an event at the Saudi Arabian Embassy across from the Kennedy Center because we heard music and saw lots of cars pull up to that building.

So we proceeded to our performance at one of the halls in the Kennedy Center. I didn't know much about the performance other than it was a Texas Swing band with a bluegrass fiddle perfoming some kind of musical and it received high praise from the Washington Post. It was totally random but it seemed like a lot of fun and I had always wanted to go see something at the Kennedy Center. After we took our seats, some guy came onstage to thank everyone for coming. Then he announced we had a very special guest in the audience, First Lady Laura Bush.

While I'm not that big of a fan of her husband, I like Laura Bush. And it doesn't matter if I actually didn't get to see her, just knowing that she was sitting in the box seats right below my balcony seat was pretty cool. So is the fact that in DC, anywhere you go, you could bump into a politician, the DC equivalent of sitting next to a movie star in LA (like when I was at the next table from Steve Martin).

The performance was actually a lot of fun and I swear, for a few hours, I actually wanted to be a Texan. That inkling eventually passed while we were hanging out in Georgetown afterwards, but I still have "I'm from Texas too" stuck in my head.

Isn't it funny how sometimes you don't really appreciate your city until a visitor from somewhere else comes? I can't wait to see what our DC day lies in store for us today.