Lunch at Jaleo

On the same day that we visited the Crime and Punishment Museum, Carlos and I had lunch at a Spanish tapas restaurant called Jaleo. After looking at crime, we walked across the street and had a delicious lunch (with a gift card courtesy of my friend Christina -- thanks Christina!). We ate here once before during restaurant week and the food is awesome (if a tad pricey).

During this lunch we shared...

Bread with oil:

Gazpacho estilo Algeciras (a very delicious gazpacho that I found the recipe for online and have since duplicated at home!):

Arroz cremoso de setas (wild mushroom rice with some nice cheese on top):

Sandia con tomates, Caña de cabra y pistachos (watermelon with tomatoes, goat cheese, and pistachios -- it sounds weird but was very nice and refreshing):

Gambas al ajillo (shrimps sauteed with garlic and peppers -- it isn't too spicy and has a tasty garlic flavor):

There you have it -- a delicious lunch as part of a fun day! We will definitely go back, but it is a little expensive so maybe for special occasions~

Crime and Punishment Museum

This past Saturday was free museum day -- this means that some museums around here (and around the entire country) that cost $$ to enter were free if you printed a ticket out online and brought it in. Carlos and I chose to visit the Crime and Punishment Museum (the Spy Museum wasn't participating, otherwise we would have gone there!).

Overall, this museum was pretty fun, informative, and had well put-together exhibits...but I'm glad I didn't have to pay the normally $18 entrance fee! I didn't like how crowded-feeling the exhibits here were, and if you looked closely at the signs, many of the items on display were replicas or props from movies (i.e. the Bonny and Clyde death car, replica of Wyatt Earp's pistol) -- that wasn't expected! The exhibits ranged from Ted Bundy's Volkswagon to mob boss stuff and pirate memorabilia.

Despite their misleading exhibits (I'm sure most people didn't even notice!), I especially liked seeing the America's Most Wanted set -- this is where the show is actually filmed! It was exciting to see~

Overall, this was a fun museum to see for free, but I would feel disappointed had I paid the steep entrance fee!

Library card catalog drawers

This past weekend was a really fun/busy one. On Saturday, Carlos and I went to the nearby (1 block down the street) BBQ place and bought a pulled pork sandwich that we brought to the park and had a little picnic. On the way there, we passed a local library that was having a book sale and on the way back home we peeped in for a look. We found some good and super cheap books, but the big treasure find was this beautiful 6-drawer library card catalog set! I have been looking for one of these FOREVER (on craiglsist, ETSY, etc. but they are always expensive). I scored this set of drawers for $30 (they usually sell for hundreds of dollars!). It is a little scuffed up and worn in some places, but it is in very good shape with intact metal drawers. It is really well-made and beautiful and I can't believe I have finally found a card catalog drawer set of my very own! I am going to refurbish it (add some stain and wax and line the drawers with felt) to make it a nice home for my art supplies. If you ever find a library sale going on, hunt around for these drawer sets because they are awesome!

Randomness

I haven't had much time to organize what I have been up to recently into a proper blog post so I thought I would throw in a bunch of pictures instead!

Carlos and I shared a watermelon/vanilla (blue!) snow cone at the USDA farmer's market:

We also attended a chili pepper festival at the farmer's market (where I won a free T-shirt!):

We had surprisingly good sushi in Union Station:

We brought this really nice Riesling to a BBQ:

We went on a secret adventure one night after the Natural History Museum closed. We explored all of the floors and found lots of human bones in the anthropology department!

We just wandered around, enjoying the sun. Here is one of my favorite trees here: the Crape Myrtle:

All of the reflecting pools around here have lots of ducks (and geese) in them!

New apartment!

Things (as usual) have been pretty busy around here, but Carlos and I have finally moved in to our new place on Capitol Hill! We love our new apartment and are very happy to have found such a good deal smack dab in the middle of the city! We are in a nice, walkable neighborhood, up the street from a pretty park, and a 10-minute bike ride from the Mall. Here are some photos that I took before we moved most of our stuff in.

Here is our entrance -- we have a little space here that leads to either the kitchen, living room, or bedroom. This view looks to the kitchen and living room (bedroom is behind me):

Our kitchen is really pretty and light! They also put in new sandstone tile floors before we arrived. It's a lot bigger than our last kitchen in Miami:

Our living room is huge (advantage of being a corner apartment!) and we have lots of windows (nice and breezy) looking South and West toward the Capitol and National Mall.

View of the Washington Monument taken through one of the screens in our living room (the Capitol is behind the tree on the left).

The bathroom is accessible from either the living room or the bedroom.

Here is the bedroom sans furniture:

Finally, here is a picture of our semi-furnished living room (we still need a dining table and chairs).

We have moved everything in from our pod (did that on Saturday) and now we have to organize it all. I will take more pictures once everything is put away and our bed is assembled (the replacement headboard was delivered yesterday)~

DC Memorials

Last week, at some point, Carlos and I made a little tour around some of the memorials near the mall. I hadn't visited most of these before -- I think of all the ones we saw, I had only been to the Washington Monument before! We walked from the mall to the Washington Monument first. We didn't ride up in it this time, but it is always a fun sight to see. From there, we wandered over to the World War II Memorial and looked around.

Next, we walked along the Reflecting Pool (it was pretty green and full of mallard and Canada goose poo!) -- it really needs a thorough cleaning.

We were walking up to the Lincoln Memorial when the skies opened up and it started pouring rain. We made it inside just in time, but a lot of other people there were soaked! It was fun to see huge Abe and we walked through all of the memorial (I didn't know it had a downstairs room).

From the Lincoln Memorial, we walked over to the Korean War Memorial. I think this is one of the newer memorials and it is very nicely-done. I liked the sculptures a lot.

After seeing all of the sights in this part of town, we walked back towards the mall and spied a little rotunda -- the World War I Memorial. It was kind of off the beaten path, but very nice.

Eventually we made it back to the metro station and zoomed back home. This was a nice way to see some of the sights in Washington DC that I had never had the time to look at before!