VA Day 3 - Marines, Memorials, and My Mom's Friends
I started today by walking around downtown Fredericksburg. The old downtown area is really old and scenic, and there's lots of cute little shops and restaurants to see. I had my first coffee of the day at an Italian placed called Orofino. They had a cafe and gelato section, and an actual restaurant portion as well but I just had the coffee. It was real Italian espresso, and it was really good.
For lunch, I went to a restaurant just called Foode, largely because I thought the storefront was hilarious but then when I looked it up, it was consistently rated as one of the best restaurants in the area. Their slogan read, "Gourmet for the rest of us!", and they fully lived up to it proving absolutely phenomenal food at a very reasonable price. At the waitress' suggestion, I ordered the shaved steak sandwich. It was piled high with juicy tender steak, fresh veggies, and Vermont Cheddar cheese, and it came with a side of delicious herb crusted french fries. I coupled it with a Black Lager from Devil's Backbone. It had the full body and flavor of a dark beer like a porter or stout, but the lightness and drinkability of a normal lager. I was pretty damn happy with the meal.
After lunch, I started driving up to northern Virginia (NoVA) where the open mic of the night would be. At my cousin's suggestion, I made a brief pit stop at the National Museum of the Marine Corps, and I was extremely glad I did. Military history has never been my particular area of academic interest, but this museum was just so incredibly designed inside and out. It might be one of the best curated museums I've ever seen, because every exhibit was designed not just to be interesting and informative, but also totally immersive with whole whole ecosystems recreated and simulated to give you impressions of what different battles were like. And it's all free!
After a brief little intro, on what marines do and what training is like (which seems pretty intense) the rest of the first floor is essentially a chronological trip through American history. The history was obviously through the lens of marine involvements, but they also made sure to give general over views of national historic trends on the home front as well. Not knowing a lot about the military, I thought it was really cool to learn about all the smaller foreign interventions Marines were deployed for during America's imperialist periods. That's a period of history I'm less versed in so I thought it was fascinating. I was also impressed that the museum didn't really glorify war that much or demonize our various opponents, instead highlighting individual act of bravery, advancements in various fields of technology that came about through war, and the history of social changes in the country that the military was frequently at the forefront of such as employing women and people of color. Again though, the layouts and immersive battle scenes were the real highlight, offering a truly unique and incredible experience.
The top floor was a lot smaller than the massive, expansive, main exhibition area but they had two really moving exhibits. One was all artwork made by veterans, and one was all photographs of soldiers coming home to their families, which didn't leave a dry eye in the house.
After the museum, I drove up to Arlington National Cemetery. I ended up spending so much time at the Marine Corps. Museum, that I didn't really have much time before the cemetery was closing. I'm still glad I got to go though. I saw the tomb of the Unknown Soldier and a brief glimpse of the Eternal Flame Monument for JFK. It was definitely one of the more somber but powerful visits, I've made on this trip.
For dinner, I drove to Alexandria, which my cousin recommended as a really hip town in NoVA. It reminded me a lot of Annapolis, in that there were lots of beautiful, old brick buildings as well as cool shops and restaurants. My favorite part was an old torpedo factory that has since been repurposed as an arts center. For food, I went to a Vietnamese restaurant called Caphe Banh Mi. I got chicken and shrimp vermicelli and a Vietnamese Iced coffee, with sweetened condensed milk. Everything was delicious and barely over $10! I just love the really thin vermicelli noodles though, so I had strong feeling going in that I was gonna like this place but it's always good to not be disappointed.
After that it was time for the open mic. It was at a place called the Epicure Cafe in Fairfax. It was a really nice bar, with a good drink selection and amazing looking pizzas. One of my mom's best friends that she used to teach with in Germany came by and brought a few of her friends so I got to sit and chat with them which was great. They gave me some relly good suggestions for podcasts and things to hit up on my travels. I did try to warn them though that a table of older people sitting right up front might attract attention from the other comics, but they were good sports about it. I was not wrong either, but most of the jabs at our direction were pretty light hearted and mostly about how it looked like a table that would really enjoy Paul Anka.
Overall it was a pretty solid mic. I was really happy because I saw a lot of the comics that I met in DC stop by, and it was awesome getting to see them again. Of the comics I hadn't seen before, my favorite was a guy named David Powell who did a bit about how he feels like the only adult who didn't the memo that nobody drinks Capri Sun anymore.
My favorite line of the night came from an older comic named Pat Bailey: "I can't do things I used to enjoy when I was younger anymore. Like taking my top of at beaches in Europe. I don't need a bunch of men staring at my knees."
My set own set went pretty well. My mom's friends actually made a recording of it, and it was cool for me to hear how much more confident I sound from when I started.
After the mic, I went back to Arlington to a neighborhood called Clarendon. It's more of an upscale shopping center area, but I was meeting one of my friend's from college who just finished doing a master's in the UK so I hadn't seen him for a year. We went to a place called Nicecream. Paul got caramel and pretzels, and I got milk chocolate chunk, and the two of us were very happy with our choices. All in all it was great getting to catch up.
Favorite Random Sightings: Captain D's; Keystone Coffee and Auto Spa; Happy Ending's Cafe; Not That Kind of Salon
Regional observation: I guess bad DC traffic is contagious, because Arlington is only over a bridge and rush hour traffic was brutal.
Albums Listened To: In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel (just the title track); In Utero by Nirvana; In-&-Re-Surrection Music by the Bread and Puppet Theatre Company (the album I'm still not sure if I bought or accidentally stole); Indestructible by Rancid; The Inevitable by Squirrel Nut Zippers; Infidels by Bob Dylan (Bobby, Mark Knopfler, and Bob Marley's rhythm section, super weird album but somehow it still works)
People's Favorite Jokes:
What do you call pasta that isn't from Italy? An im-pasta
Song of the day:
