100 days ago......

January was a crazy busy month for me. I had every intention, but I never did sit down and blog about Inauguration Week here in DC. It was awe-inspiring and unforgettable! The city had been preparing for weeks and when the day finally arrived, you could tell we had all prepared ourselves. Mind you, I still had to work during all this madness, but at least my sis was in town and the exictement was amazing. The concert at the Lincoln Memorial was the first event of the week and for my sister and I, it was our trial run. After that Sunday, we knew 4 very important things:

1. It was going to be FREEZING cold.
2. We would be sitting/standing on the freezing cold ground (in one place) for HOURS.
3. I would cry at some point for some reason.
4. It was going to be WORTH IT!!!


Beginning: We line up at the subway station with hundreds of others at 2am.

Mid-Beginning: Stake our claim in front of a JumboTron inside the National Mall with the Capital Building ahead of us.

Middle: In a sea of millions, my sister puts her glove on her flag stick and waves it above our heads every time the camera scans our area. We text messaged our family members with instructions to look for that teal colored glove. It didn't work, but we thought it might at the time and it was very fun! Also, right about this time I did start crying because we still had 3 hours to go before the inauguration began and the concession stand had already run out of coffee! Bastards!

End: At this point, fear did start to creep in for just a little bit. The crowd began to disperse and we were all headed for the closest subway station. My sis and I were separated from our friends and ended up in a literal human traffic jam. People smashed up against each other from all directions. It took us 2 hours, but we finally were on a train out of the city and shortly after that, in my car driving back to Richmond.


FLASHBACK:
Three days before election day I was with my client in LA who is also my very dear friend. I had the opportunity to stay a few more days before flying back to Richmond, but I said "I can't! The election is on Tuesday and Obama needs me! I'm registered in a swing state! I'm going to turn Virginia blue!!" On the night of the election, just as I was jumping up and down screaming in my living room, I received a text message from her saying, "You did it!"

Tales from the Road #1

DO NOT under any circumstances EVER, EVER, EVER flip off a federal officer in Washington, DC. Even if he IS driving in an unmarked car and you had absolutely NO IDEA there was law enforcement in there. EVEN if he didn't let you merge into that lane, you just don't do that!! I mean, he's got his reasons for being that way and you just have to keep driving forward and find another way into that merge lane, sorry. Oh, yes.....be sorry. Be very, very, very contrite and beg for forgiveness! Express your shame and sorrow and he just might let you drive away!

Penny pinching at it's very best!

Have I mentioned my friend Dipti? She's the best! She is new here too, having just moved from Toronto, Canada on a teaching exchange program and coincidentally we met while touring the same apartment complex back in Oct. We recognized in each other a need for like-minded friendship. We've had long talks about dealing with moving from a large city to a small suburb in Virginia and we've explored a lot of DC together too. So, we've been bouncing around the idea of going up to Manhattan for the weekend but with work, company in town for both of us, and every day life it was almost impossible to plan it. So we decided to just try and fly by the seat of our pants when the time was right and it worked!! There were definitely challenges. We couldn't afford to spend a lot of money and NYC is a notoriously expensive city. We only had 3 days (Fri, Sat, Sun). Since both of us love it there, we had A LOT we wanted to show each other and do while in the city. Here's how we figured it out and I really hope it inspires someone to do it for themselves too!! Get away and enjoy life!

Question: How do you find a reasonable price for a hotel when you try to book just 6days before your arrival?
Answer: Hotels.com- 2 nights at the Paramount Hotel in Times Square, mid-town Manhattan. Cost= 94.50 per night!!!

Q: How do you get from DC to Manhattan in the least amount of time/hassle without paying a fortune?
A: Megabus.com- Dropped us off in mid-town at 11am on Fri and picked us up at Penn Station at 6pm on Sun.
Cost= 40.00 roundtrip!

Q: How can you possibly see a SOLD-OUT Broadway show on OPENING WEEKEND?!
A: Box office at the theater. West Side Story standing-room only tickets on opening weekend.
Cost= 26.50 per person!!

Q: How do you go have dessert at Serendipity when every single other visit before to NY you've walked in and there is a 2hr+ wait and you just end up saying screw that?!
A: Midnight, baby!! (FYI: I'm so glad I finally ate at that place! WAY over-rated. If you want good dessert go to Max Brenner's instead. That place was rad!) http://www.maxbrenner.com/

There are other things we did to keep costs down. It was my first time in NY that I didn't sit in the back of a taxi-cab. Dipti convinced me to just take the subway for everything and she was totally right. Once you resign yourself to walking everywhere, it was fine. We bought day passes and just told ourselves we were walking off all that dessert. Also, we didn't shop til we dropped either. We hit up Canal Street, but nothing was really all that appealing. We had 2 meals a day after our morning coffees.

So, there you have it. Penny pinching at it's very best. It was a wonderful weekend and we are gonna try and do this again. We'll see if it's anything worth blogging about!

xo
C