By Tom Bridge
Washington Dulles International Airport, Dulles, VA
Originally uploaded by seaview99
Just in time for the Thanksgiving rush, Dulles is opening their fourth runway. This will allow yet more landings & takeoffs, and will hopefully allow the airport to handle a bit more traffic without congestion.
By Jenn Larsen
"Tabard Inn Cocktail" with lemon zest and thyme leaves...
When the weather gets frigid, I begin my never-ending quest for a drinks spot with “hygge.” This is one of those totally untranslatable Danish words – encompassing a feeling of warmth, cosiness, and social cheer, hopefully accented by music and free of pretension – the feeling you get on a cold night, halfway through a mulled cider or a hot toddy, sinking into a soft divan before a fireplace, surrounded by jazz aficionados – wait a minute, here’s a much easier translation:
“Hygge” = Tabard Inn.
Tabard Inn is a classic small hotel, neither swank nor modern nor cold, with an antique-filled, lived-in look, like a grandmother with a twinkle in her eye. It’s hard to go wrong with drinks in the firelit front room, but you can also snuggle up in one of the many nooks upstairs or at the bar in the dining room. It’s the sort of place my girlfriends and I go when we want “proper cocktails” in a quiet comfortable corner – reminding me of my favorite place for drinks in NYC, the Algonquin Hotel.
Last Sunday was one of those nights, with a brisk wind driving us to thoughts of mulled cider before the fireplace.
By brownpau
I post about this altogether too much, but here we go again: epic lines to enter the Foggy Bottom Metro Station because of a rush hour escalator bottleneck. Of three escalators, one is closed for repairs till Nov 29th, one seems to be up-only, and the remaining nonworking one is split between down and up lanes. The result: a forked pair of lines stretching down the block in either direction.
I skipped the scene altogether and walked to Farragut West instead.
By Don
Just what I wanted, courtesy of tiffany bridge
Well, sorta – only Bill gets to eat there without paying, but a discount on gift certificates bought through restaurants.com has cropped up again, allowing you to buy certificates at a steep discount. $10 worth of Ben’s for $3 is pretty cool to begin with. For $0.60? Any deal you get better than must come from Santa.
The only other place on the list that I ever go is Ted’s Montana Grill,a perfectly servicable but hardly exciting restaurant. If you frequent Bullfeather’s or La Tasca you’re also in luck, but I recognize few of the other names.
Go to the Fatwallet page and choose the Extra 80% Off Dining Certificates & Dinner of the Month Club to get to the purchase site, or just go and look at the restaurant list. Is there anything there the rest of us should be clamoring for?
pizza, frozen dinners, beer
Originally uploaded by iboy_daniel
I am not someone who buys a lot of frozen dinners. We’re trying to be good locavores, and to avoid lots of the weird additives that get put into prepared foods, so our freezer space tends to be reserved for ingredients.
But DC Central Kitchen, already one of my favorite local charities, might just get us to budge a little. They’re launching a line of frozen meals made with local ingredients from recipes donated by local celebrity chefs like Roberto Donna and Jose Andres.
Local food AND social responsibility, conveniently located in my freezer, is worth a try. The meals will be sold in local Wegmans and My Organic Markets, as well as a few other local outlets.
By Katie
Chavari 2 Courtesy of Cirque du Soliel
Earlier this past summer WaPo’s DC Scout sent me an email giving me pre-sale access to tickets for Cirque du Soleil’s touring show, Kooza. I bought tickets, and then promptly forgot about the show until looking at my calendar for November. I was pretty excited to remember Kooza! I’d never been to see a Cirque show, though I always hear rave reviews every time I talk with someone about a Cirque show that they’ve seen.
Kooza is playing at National Harbor, up above the main harbor on what they call the plateau, basically a huge parking lot and a big paved surface for Kooza’s tent. Matt and I arrived at the big top tent, or the “The Grand Chapiteau” about an hour before the show started. We got there just as the 4 p.m. showing was letting out, which was good because we got a good parking spots. And then we headed up to the main tent, which opens an hour before the show. Smart, since Cirque has shops and refreshment stands open before the show and lets you take food in. The beer selection is not to shabby (they featured Magic Hat‘s aptly named Circus Boy hefeweisen) and we got to share a chocolate mousse pie.
We headed into our seats and that’s when the show began. Immediately clowns started coming out into the audience, picking on people. There were a few scattered through the audience acting as spectators, and then surprising people by jumping up and being a part of the show. I love that kind of audience interaction, and knew we were in for a good time.
By Don
Law enforcement scofflaws, courtesy of philliefan99
About a year ago Marc Fisher joined other voices in condemning DC for removing the opportunity to challenge parking tickets in person. Well, it turns out the solution to their problem is simple: get your parking tickets park in Arlington.
Arlington is going the exact opposite direction, and requiring that anyone who wants to challenge a parking ticket show up in person to make their claim. Arlington is disbanding the parking review office in order to save on salaries so now you either get to pay up or take your chances with the judge. That means that if your claim is denied you not only give up the time in your day – which Fisher and others seem not to value, so no biggie there – but also $61 in court costs.
As an old co-worker of mine used to say: “here’s your monkey’s paw, smart-ass.”
By Don
Windmill at the US Botanic Gardens, courtesy of kimberlyfaye
Well, blogs and all other electronics-related things. WTOP reports that University of Maryland researchers have found an alternative for the body and planet-harming lead used on most electronics. One of the reasons people are always harassing you to throw away your old electronics responsibly is that they contain lead which seeps out of them if you just toss them in the landfill. This achievement at UMD will allow manufacturers to use bismuth instead of lead.
WTOP also reports that some manufacturers are using bismuth in place of lead in ammunition, though they stop short of claiming it makes it healthier for you.
Poonanza 6 at the DC Improv
When I mentioned to Tom that this week’s Comedy in DC feature was going to be on the sixth-ever Poonanza, he looked at me skeptically and said, “That doesn’t sound like a comedy show, hon.” Yeah, I know.
The brainchild of local comedy icon Larry Poon, Poonanza is a largely sketch-based show written by the Pooninator himself as well as co-performers Ryan Conner, Jay Hastings, Justin Schlegel, Danny Rouhier, the apparently controversial Aparna Nancherla, and Jon Mumma. (While I was checking all these comedian URLs, I noticed how many of them are referred to as either “outrageous” or “one of the hottest young comics in [geographical area].” Time to come up with some new promotional copy, kids.) Poonanza attendees will also enjoy some standup comedy from David Angelo, who is the top Google result for a search on his name but still managed to get stuck with a .info domain, and Erin Conroy. The show will be on Saturday, December 13th. There will be two shows, 8 and 10:30, and tickets are $10. All the previous Poonanzas have sold out, so you’d better act quick.
Having seen many of these comics at a number of standup shows around the area (three of them at Chief Ike’s the night of the infamous Olive Oil Incident), I’m interested to see how they translate to sketch. And as if the above photo of Larry Poon doesn’t tell you enough, there’s video behind the cut. Continue reading
By brownpau
Have you been hearing the new Metro station sound? About twelve seconds into this rush hour video from Metro Center, listen for a familiar double chime (very like the default Windows Ding sound) followed by a service disruption announcement far better enunciated than Metro station alerts have usually been.
The new alert sound comes at an ironic lipstick-on-a-pig moment as the train in the video has overcrowding and door-closing problems.
By Tom Bridge
01.LesHalles.12Penn.NW.WDC.6jan07
Originally uploaded by ElvertBarnes
Friday, it turns out, was the last day for Les Halles over on Penn Ave at the Warner Building. Anthony Bourdain’s baby is no more in DC, after losing the lease on the place after 15 years. They’ll apparently still be dong their Beaujolais Nouveau party on the 20th, though, but the restaurant is currently closed, but for that.
Crap. That really sucks. This place had awesome frites, and it’s really a shame to see them go.
By Tom Bridge
This is the start of a new column for us here at We Love DC. We’re going to do pieces on a lot of the different “leisure sports leagues” that are organized here in this area. Sure, some of them will be more leisurely than others, and our starting sport is certainly one of the more intense ones. Are you in a leisure sports league? Are you interest in fame and fortune, though legally we can guarantee neither? Email us with your story at tom at welovedc dot com.
Swinging by tbridge
The drive up to Reisterstown to visit the Baltimore Broomball Club was nothing short of exhausting. 2 hours from door to door, in rainy traffic at first, and by the end a pea-soup sort of fog that hid the Reisterstown Sports Plex, except for a vivid fog halo from the lights. Inside, on the cold rink, hockey practice was ending, and the zamboni was on the ice. 25 people had braved the fog, the traffic and the late fall chill to come suit up and play Broomball.
Broomball’s origins are a bit blurry, but is said to have evolved in Canada, like most games played on an icy surface. It’s not to be confused with curling, though, which is a subject for a wholly separate story, as there is a DC Curling Team of some repute. The game is straight forward: think of Soccer, crossed with Hockey. Two 18-minute periods make up the game as a whole, and six players from each team are on the ice at any given point, one of which is generally the goalie. Each player gets a helmet and a “broom”, and wears special shoes that grip the ice a good bit better than your average hiking shoes. Continue reading
By Ben H. Rome
Christmas Colors
Originally uploaded by Burnt Pixel
I know, I know, Thanksgiving is still a week away, but in preparation for our upcoming “Holiday Feature” (where we’ll spill the dirt on what’s going on in the area – look for it on December 1), I wanted to pass on some relevant info.
On Friday, Nov 28, when you’ve come out of your turkey coma, head over to Market Square in Old Town Alexandria at 7 p.m. There, you’ll find Alexandria’s Tree Lighting Ceremony. Food, entertainment (though I question if a “message from the mayor” is truly considered entertaining? What’s he going to do, break into a comedy routine?), a visit from Santa and caroling all await those eager to jump into the holiday season.
Know of your community’s tree lighting party? Drop the info below in comments.
By Tom Bridge
Crema free lunch & Icecream
Originally uploaded by pochacco20
God I hate that phrase. “Cyber Monday” has me full on ready to grab the nearest sharp object and go all emo. “Free Lunch,” though, is hard to ignore, especially in these troubled economic times. So, if you’re interested, shop.org is having a free lunch event at the Hard Rock Café on E Street downtown. RSVPs will be taken on their Facebook page, but they’re saying they won’t be necessary. There will also be laptops for shopping, and a raffle to give away gift cards.
So, because my thriftyness outweighs my hatred for cultural misappropriation of words, you may well find me there on the 1st of December.
Washington Monument in the Fall (Post Election)
Originally uploaded by SigEp NV Alpha ’03
The moment the election was called for Obama, Tom and I started wondering the best way to get to see the Inauguration. This will be, as we have all been endlessly reminded, a significant historical event, and it seems to us that one of the best things about life in DC is the opportunity to get up close to history when it happens. So we started asking our various members of Congress for Inaugural tickets, offering up our couch to friends who might want to crash with us if they’re coming into town, and plotting the best way to see it even if we can’t get a ticket. We do, after all, have a very nice TV if all else fails.
It sounds like the Park Service is already planning for massive crowds on the Mall. The ceremony is on the Capitol steps, so most of the Mall won’t have a good view, but there’s talk of Jumbotrons all over the Mall and the parade route to include as many people as possible in the festivities.
The estimate is that the Mall itself can hold 3 million people, and officials are working hard to avoid the Bicentennial debacle where there was insufficient infrastructure to get everyone out of the city after the festivities were over.
Do you have Inaugural plans yet?
By brownpau
Broken Escalator Glass, Metro Center
Originally uploaded by brownpau
I’m not sure what happened here. Angry Metro rider? Angry Redskins fan? Angry that the escalator wasn’t working? Rush hour jostling accident? General horseplay incident? Repair work flub? In any case, this escalator from the lower level of Metro Center to the Glenmont-bound Red Line platform has been closed for two weeks, and is now likely to stay closed for a bit longer while they replace the broken glass.
By Max
Fixation Opening Party by vincent gallegos
It would be an extreme understatement if I said that it was ‘a night to remember’. Friday night’s opening party for Fixation at Fight Club was one hell of a way to get FotoWeek DC started. This show tied together art, people, and the city like no other.
It’s impossible to explain how comfortable and chill the party was, all the while electric and full of energy. You couldn’t escape the eclecticism. The crowd ranged from wealthy, “in the know”, socialite art collectors to artists and die hard skaters. The music switched from electronica to rock and roll, then drifted back to club music to keep the party rolling. Our beverages began as champagne and later morphed into beer, while our food went from gourmet pizza to food off of a snack cart. If you commissioned a painting to represent the night, it would contain elegant brush strokes smeared with spray paint, colors from across the spectrum.
By Amélie
Washington Under Snow
Originally uploaded by maxedaperture
Well, it’s that time of year. As you begin your thoughts of turkey and travel, good ole Mother Nature reminds you that it’s approaching the winter months by teasing you with some colder temps and some welcome (at least in the D.C. area) precipitation. While I spotted some flakes in Rockville yesterday, the first official forecast for snow for the 2008-2009 winter is for this evening.
No, this doesn’t mean you’re to run to the grocery store and irrationally gather milk and bread (why not flour and yeast and make it interesting?). But expect the IQ of your average Metro-area driver to fall faster than the President’s approval ratings. So if you find yourself in freezing precipitation at all, day or night, slow it down, think, and don’t forget to make sure you use your headlights and have new wipers on your car.
For parents, make sure you start planning your early release plans with your significant other, no need to loose your top or mind over what to do when it happens. And of course, for the times when this weather creeps in overnight and plans to deliver more than a dusting (or misting), bookmark those URLs for the open and closing status of schools and work (for most, the Office of Personnel Management is a good start)
By Tom Bridge
Raffle Tickets
Originally uploaded by alykat
What happens when the real estate market takes a total shit and you can’t sell your $1 Million house? Well, Raffle it off at $50/ticket instead. So, if you’re interested in a $1M house in Annapolis, you can buy a ticket, or two, or a dozen. The drawing’s the last day of the year, and there’s some charity benefit to it all, as a charity must be involved in any raffle like this. If they sell enough tickets, the house will be yours, free and clear.
Except for 40% taxes, which amount to a cool $400k.
Oh, and Real Estate taxes. So it’s not free. Or cheap. But, you could get a $1M house for $400k…
By Ben H. Rome
G20 summit in Washington, DC, courtesy of Downing Street
Despite the gray skies, tornado warnings, cold rain and a Redskins letdown, this was still an eventful weekend in the greater Washington DC area. Highlights after the jump.
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