While I covered our rallying fun, I haven't yet covered the rest of the Jan weekend. As mentioned many, many times over the course of this blog, these girls/women are very dear to me and we only get to be together as a group once a year. Every other year this has been a Christmas reunion, but with adulthood what it is, this year it's not going to work out.
Christmas 2009
Luckily it did work out that Jan was looking for a quick getaway from L.A. and wanted to come to the home of 3/4 of the group: D.C. It was going to be a short trip, and it was, and I can't say it was enough time, but it was perfect. Or, well, not exactly as we had to contend with serious metro delays, a suspicious package, rally crowds, and a middle of the night fire alarm. You know, just your typical D.C. weekend.
I met Jan at the airport Friday evening and we metroed into the city. But when it came time to switch trains, there were serious delays on the red line, i.e., the only line that goes to my apartment. Hiccup Number One. With the two of us cold and hungry and our two friends back at the apartment just hungry, we decided to catch a cab. On a Friday night. In Chinatown. By two people who have never actually hailed a cab before. (Don't ask me how this is possible.) We ended up getting lucky and grabbed one rather quickly, which got us back to my place faster than we thought it would. Hiccup Number One Averted.
The four of us were together at last and ready for some Tex-Mex and margaritas at a great place a few blocks from our place. About a block away from our building we came to a police car blocking off the street and yellow caution tape. Hiccup Number Two.
Now, while this may sound alarming to most, it honestly happens quite a bit. Maybe not the yellow tape, but police cars blocking off streets, officers running around with guns, it happens. It's a busy city with lots of important people in it, and lots of crazy people too, unfortunately. As we debated whether we should just walk a few blocks around it, an officer came up to tell us that they were investigating a suspicious package and that we should move because we were in the blast zone. While suspicious packages are nothing new to us either, being in the blast zone is, so we turned around and decided we should probably save the margaritas for another night.
We ended up at a cute Italian place that was only alright, but it wasn't in any blast zone that we knew of so bonus points for that. Hiccup Number Two Averted.
The next day was getting to the rally, the rally, and then getting back from the rally, which took up the daylight hours. That night all four of us stayed at the BK and finally got our Tex-Mex and Margaritas.
Then it was back to the apartment where we did our traditional group shot, watched "The Hangover," and laughed until we couldn't stand and our sides hurt.
We were in bed shortly after one and ready for a peaceful night's sleep. And by "night" I mean "two hours" as the fire alarm in our building started going off sometime after 3 a.m. I say "sometime" because I'm not entirely sure how long it was going off. Hiccup Number Three.
Between my earplugs and the busy day, I was knocked out cold, which rarely happens. Karey tried to wake me from the doorway, and when that didn't work, Jan bravely ventured closer to shake me awake. Only I sensed a presence in the room and woke up, and instead of assuming it was one of the three people currently asleep in my apartment, took it to be an intruder and started shouting "no, no, no!" at my dear friend Oops.
Eventually we all got it relatively together and made our way outside, past the alarmingly loud alarm. We were greeted by two firetrucks and many firemen, then joined briefly by another truck and the fire marshal. They ran around for a bit and even unrolled the hose, but we never saw or smelled smoke and they never used the hose, so we're still not entirely sure what happened. Other than that whatever it was happened in the apartment above us, as we heard the firemen say the number. And how do we know this for sure? We were privy, for at least an hour, to a very heated and very loud argument from the occupants of that apartment after we were lucky enough to return to our home. Never realized just how thin our ceilings are. Hiccup Number Three Averted?
As a way to wind down from that insane weekend, on Sunday we had brunch and met up with one of our friends from college before saying goodbye.
It was a busy and a quick weekend and as usual there wasn't enough time, but we could have all the time in the world and it probably still wouldn't be enough. But it was amazing and that's all that matters.
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