"wait, why did we do that again?"

~yours truly, in the elevator, with the headache. (kind of like clue, but not.)

yeesh. okay, so this is mostly gonna be a picture post. I mean, I was only there for, what, 42 hours or less? yeah. but we did SO much.

friday night:

got there. after we got all my crap in the room (I'm an overpacker who packed in a hurry AND couldn't tell if it was gonna be balmy or freezing--whatev.) jackie was like "everyone says hi." everyone, who? "oh, everyone. kat. brooke. everyone else. they all had something specific but what they all meant was 'hi, hi! have fun! y'all will have fun!'" it made me smile.

so to all of you, hi back. :)

after a quick shower and change of dress it was off to matchbox with matt r and shannon. it's a swank little restaurant with three floors, but it's still pretty tiny. I felt like the people next to us were listening to our whole convo! I also ran into my friend's ex--that I'd met once. In DC? Huh? Yeah, he had no idea who I was. Oh well. note: the pizza sauce at matchbox is SPICY!

next we went to proof where a guy jax had met was drinking. he was entertaining and jax and I hoped we'd get free drinks out of it, honestly. :) but he DID NOT know what to think of me. he was not prepared for a chemical engineering environmentalist to tell him what's what when he tried to sound all snooty about going to paris to learn about nuclear power. he thought I knew nothing. boy was he wrong!

and I met a guy, andrew, who said "c-a-r-e-y?" and I said "no, c-a-r-r-i-e, the other is a boy's name." and he said, jokingly I hope, "either way I'd f*ck them." yikes. he was dee-runk and apparently, according to matt r, would've liked to take me home. whoa.

we were also told by MULTIPLE people (at least three) that there was "no way" we'd fit in everything we had planned for our saturday. they meant well. ps, they were wrong.

e left at last call, and this is when we a)took the donald w. reynolds pic and b)when jax lost her phone. she didn't realize until we were already in the subway, and thank gawd we found it. but I had to CHASE after her. in heels. it was awful. I actually screamed "jaaaaaaaaackie, waaaaaaaait!" she didn't. I caught up. and I complained a lot about my feet the next day. :)

um and then we *ahem* went the wrong way on the metro. oopsie. and waited forever at judiciary square. and got home at 330 and crashed. "an early night" I'd suggested. so much for that.

saturday:

checked out of our hotel and then almost killed each other. well, sort of.

we checked our bags at hotel helix and went in search of a parking deck that didn't cost $30 like the valet parking. we made circles and circles and circles. and nothing. and 20-minutes-that-felt-like-an-eternity later, we went back to the hotel helix and some jackass was blocking the drive. ugh.

we finally valeted it, had our respective fixes at caribou coffee across the street (pepsi and orange juice) and started our adventure.

we saw: the supreme court. the capitol. a bunch of eighth graders. a cat on the supreme court steps. a photographer who took our picture as we walked. the metros. a nice lady in the metro booth who told us that despite insistence otherwise, yes we could get to georgetown. georgetown. zara (where I bought the cute argyle sweater). sushiko. an icky cemetery near sushiko. the river. the inside of multiple buses. a cvs where I bought new eyeshadow. the metro again.

and then, the inside of our hotel room! damn, we had too much fun. and I actually had to say "um, jackie? where's the bed?" it was hidden behind the curtain. yikes!

saturday we went out to dinner at lauriol plaza, which was decent but soooooooo not tex mex. and deffo not better. believe you me, if you think that's tex mex, you need to come on a little vacay to t-town. I'll show you. jackie and I had MANY entertaining convos here, most of which were SO not PG.

next we met up with adriana (one of ariel's friends who I know from her bachelorette and wedding) and her friend javier at brassiere beck. though jackie and I made insta-friends (aka drunk dudes who were hitting on us) the place was dead and we left. josephines looked unreasonably packed so we went to lima, which was, not surprisingly, also unreasonably packed. like, at one point I had people pressed up on all sides of me and was at the mercy of the crowd as I clutched my coat, wristlet and orange stoli with sprite.

we had a good time with adriana and javier, but the bar was WAY too crowded for us. plus, it was past midnight when we got there, so jax and I were tie-tie. we graciously exited a skosh after 2 and went back to the helix for our hallway dance party and picture taking extravaganza. some of those photos had to be deleted incase either of us ever wanted to run for office. kidding, but seriously? our cameras should automatically shut off after 2am. yeesh.

and sunday we left. ate breakfast, took jax to the airport, drove through alexandria by mistake but found 395 anyway, went to Ikea and came home. I also learned that there is no bojangles between dc and raleigh, at least not according to the highway signs.

and now I am *still* tired. and *still* catching up on my life and obligations and the newsletter and evites and the panty party and work and aaah! I have to say, feb is doing okay in my book, but I'm looking forward to my less-cluttered calendar in march...