d.c., day 7

On Friday, I decided to sleep in. Drew had a lunch meeting, so I was on my own for lunch this time. I took advantage of this and went to Five Guys Burgers and Fries. It was a small restaurant that had some personality, despite it being a chain. It reminded me of In-n-Out without the long lines and the long wait.

So here's how it works: I went up to the counter to place my order. The regular cheeseburgers and hamburgers contain two meat patties, and the little cheeseburgers and hamburgers contain one. They also serve up hot dogs, but since "burgers" is in the name of the restaurant, why would I eat a hot dog? Anyway, after ordering the burger, I get to choose toppings. The toppings are free by the way. I chose sauteed mushrooms, onions, lettuce and pickles. While I waited for my number to be called, I had the option to snack on the bulk peanuts, but I didn't. Motown music plays in the background.

Check out the food:

This restaurant, which has won lots of awards and gets a lot of notoriety, lives up to its reputation. The cheeseburger was juicy, and the fries were good too. The fries are fresh cut and fried in peanut oil. It was so good, I'm getting hungry just writing about it!

I'm going to take a moment to tell a story that at first will seem completely unrelated to my Five Guys experience. Okay, so I've observed that the areas of DC around the National Mall, the White House, and the Capitol Building are the tourist meccas. (You know these people are tourists because they walk slowly and have no idea where they are going.) However, the rest of DC is like any other city, and the locals wear nice business clothes and hustle to work.

The first couple days that I was here, I would sometimes see men wearing black dress pants and white dress shirts. I tried to avoid them, not looking them in the eye. You see, I'm normally on college campuses, and whenever I've encountered men wearing white and black, they are Mormon and they try to convert me. For some reason, missionaries like to approach me. I find this peculiar because I am the person who is normally able to evade street canvassers and the people standing on street corners trying to hand out business flyers. But for some reason, I can't shake the Mormon missionaries.

It took me a couple days, but I finally realized that those men in DC weren't going to try to get me to be Mormon; instead, those were their work clothes and I could be assured that they wouldn't try to convert me. Now, back to Five Guys. At the table next to me were about six Mormon missionaries. I know this because not only were they wearing white and black, but they were also wearing ties and name tags. I was a little nervous that they would try to convert me, but they didn't and instead enjoyed their burgers and frieds. (sigh of relief)

Thanks for bearing with me through that detour. After lunch, I decided to walk around and check out the shops. I had heard that the Columbia Heights area was a great place to shop, but I wasn't impressed. Of course, I have been spoiled in the past, what with the Mall of America in MN and great shopping malls in Southern California. Anyway, there was something that sort of resembled a shopping mall in Columbia Heights. It had a Best Buy, Marshall's, Bed, Bath, and Beyond, Target, and a Lane Bryant (which is a plus sized women's clothing store). So, nothing too interesting.

I wandered around for a bit trying to decide what to do. I considered going into Lane Bryant. After all, I had just consumed enough calories to last me about a week, so I contemplated the possibility that I might now qualify as plus sized. In the end, I wandered around Target for a bit before heading to Sticky Fingers to read and drink coffee.

I picked up a chocolate chip cookie, pecan cookie, and a peanut butter fudge cupcake. The chocolate chip cookie was pretty good (but it needed lots more chocolate chips), the pecan cookie was excellent, and the cupcake was phenomenal.
In the evening, Drew and I went to see 'Away We Go,' with Maya Rudolph and John Krasinski. We laughed a lot. It was a good movie, very feel good and heart warming.