Last weekend, my husband planned an overnight getaway surprise jaunt for us. Granddaddy Jack came over Friday afternoon to look after Little A until my parent's came to pick him up. Adrian drove us over to the train station to wait for our afternoon train to... DC! Yeah! I hadn't been up to the Capitol in almost 3 years (My 29th birthday trip being our last jaunt to DC. The trip of the sandals of doom.). At the ticket window, Adrian discovered bad news. Two hour delay. We took it in stride, perused an antique mall for an hour, returned to the station, waited about 30 minutes more, only to learn the train was still an hour away. Parked. Fuck.
AmTrak Sucks.
Completely out of character with our past traveling attitude (Which would have been to get pouty about the setback, fight, and go home.), we threw caution to the wind, gassed up the Mini, coffee'd up our tummies and hit the highway. Amazing, as though driving was our divinely ordained method of travel, traffic was uncharacteristically light. We made it into the city in about 80 minutes. After checking into our hotel and with a long wait until dinner (Change in reservations prompted by AmTrak fuck-up.), we wandered, chatted, visited Borders. In other words, had a nice relaxing time.
We Metro'd (Man, I love public transport.) to dinner, enjoyed a nice late meal, and returned almost painfully full to the hotel where we collapsed into bed and sleep. After a tasty breakfast, we strolled over to the National Gallery so I could gaze at some French Impressionism and one of my favorite Degas. We also stumbled into some pretty cool exhibitions including a beautiful collection of Paris photography from the late 1800's through the 1920's. Among the works were fabulous shots of pre-Haussman Paris, inventive studies of the Eiffel Tower, and a shot of what we swore was "our alley"- a little enclave of shops and restaurants we discovered back in 2003.
I am a total art nerd. God bless my husband for indulging me. He sure knows how to show this girl a good time.
While we professed several times over the course of the trip to missing Little A(especially when we saw other babies), it was nice to go off for a while and be just a couple. Engage in conversation uninterrupted by life. Go wherever the day takes us, and not a certain someone's nap schedule. For a little while, I like pretending we weren't parents. It was relaxing. But I don't think I could have pretended for too long.
Fun consumerist goodness:
- My awesome new purse from Target. It's orange.
- Against everything I thought I knew about my personal style, I got capri jeans. I've not had the guts to wear them in public yet. Maybe I am waiting to find the right pair of shoes.
- The boyfriend trouser from Gap. Ladies, get yourself at pair. Totally comfy.
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