Some Kinda Festival

My intention this Sunday was to spend the day with Bobbie in Georgetown, a section of Washington DC, browse the shops, drink a coffee, go to a flea market and then take part in the DC Cherry Blossom Festival, which takes place around the tidal basin at Monument Alley. For the geography majors out there, Georgetown, or M Street in Georgetown is “across the river” from the Kennedy Center, and not exactly in walking distance from the tidal basin. Needless to say, we went into it knowing that we would have to park, at least once.

Here was the plan – yep, I know, we made one – scary. Leave the house at 7am, make the hour long drive into downtown DC and park the car in and around the tidal basin closest to the Cherry Blossom Festival. The GT flea market was the real reason for this Sunday outing since Bobbie has been reading the blog of some woman who lives in Alabama and gets all kinds of bargains at local flea markets. For whatever reason, Bobbie felt a Sunday flea market in DC was the best place to start. Looks like my summer Sunday’s are booked. This flea market started at 8:30am and apparently ended at 4pm, which was a piece of information that wasn’t shared with me until we got there. Our intention, park near the tidal basin, jump on the metro, zip over the GT for the flea market, a few hours of browsing and then back via metro to the tidal basin to stroll through the Cherry Blossoms and vela, right near the car. Arrive in DC about 8am with the idea that there would be plenty of parking since it was so early in the morning. Like who in their right mind is out of the house at 8am on the most beautiful Sunday this year after a week full of rain. THE ENTIRE CITY. I mean the place was packed! PACKED to the brim. Oh yeah, it was freaking Palm Sunday too!

Quick change of plans – drive to GT, park there and ditch the stroll though the Cherry Blossoms for a drive though the prestigious Kenwood neighborhood in Besethda, a neighborhood with Cherry Blossom lined streets, and where Richie Rich/Bobbie lived during high school. A very doable compromise since this was really her day not mine, I just wanted to go to Urban Outfitters on M Street. We found the flea market, which should have been reason enough to head home. Some old black guy wanted $225 for one bronze (most likely fake) sconce, which was a ‘today only deal’, down from the original $750. Needless to say, we left more or less empty handed. So we bailed, re-parked the car closer to M Street and started to walk – let the browsing begin. It’s only 11am and on Sunday’s shops on M Street open at noon. Fan-freaking-tastic. We decide to walk down by the river instead, taking in the architectural wonder that is GT. We go only to one shop, The Paper Source. Does that really sound like it can compete with Urban Outfitters? Right, one guess who wanted to go there? Not only was Bobbie starting to whine as she started to get ‘tired’, which is code for disappointed and board, she was hungry. A deadly combination. After some driving around looking for yet another parking space, we eat at one of the best Mexican places I’ve been too in a long time. Worth the fighting.

Will full bellies, it was on to view the Cherry Blossoms. Okay, if you’re not from DC or the DC area, as far north as Baltimore, you have no idea what a cherry blossom is, let alone why people worship these blooming tress. Yep, you read that right, Cherry Blossoms have nothing to do with cherries, but are simply ‘beautiful trees’ the bloom in the early spring. DC-ians go crazy for these, mostly the Korean population. They love to take pictures of their little Korean kids amongst the bring white-pinkish blossoms. The perfect Easter picture. Do Korean’s believe in Easter?

I’ve been to the prestigious Kenwood neighborhood before. Every now and again Bobbie grows nostalgic of the life she lived there. It’s a pretty neighborhood full of big houses in a colonial type setting. Very Bestheda, very Bobbie. As we approach the entrance to the neighborhood, we see a long line of cars and a police officer directing traffic. We should have taken that as a note and just headed home, but it’s not like we read the writing on the walls the entire day. We entered the neighborhood as instructed by the Montgomery County police and WHAM, to think the crowds at the tidal basin were bad – that had nothing on this place. Anyone who lived in Baltimore in summer of 2004 lived though the ‘Cicada Summer’ knows the feeling of opening your front door and getting smacked in the face with 500 buzzing wings. This was the same feeling but with people and small children in bike helmets. The streets were lined with parked cars, mostly on one side and a single lane of solid traffic right down the center, coupled with the droves of people who didn’t live in the neighborhood walking at a snails pace, taking in the beauty of the Cherry Blossoms. Yep, you guest it, lots of Koreans. People everywhere, just walking down the middle of the road, with little concern for the cars who just might have a reason to be the neighborhood – yeah right, none of them did. They were all like us, out for a Sunday drive, snapping pictures at every turn. There are little areas in the neighborhood, at the ends of streets or intersections of others, grassy medians, where the people just set up shop, complete with picnic lunches. It was amazing that a neighborhood would allow this to occur, on Palm Sunday to boot.

We stopped by an open house, of course a house that Bobbie was ‘dying’ to see inside, even though the outside was nothing to write home about. We luckily found an open spot almost right across from the house. We enter, only to have the smell of mothballs smack us right in the face – like a ton of bricks. The more of the house we walk through, the more it becomes clear that grandparents are living here. Mismatched furniture, resembling the lobby of a nursing home, different art pieces, resembling that of a Motel 6. Nightmare for sale. The house was big, somewhat large rooms and hallways, which the realtor was certain to point out, but what an odd layout. There was a jack-n-jill bathroom, which I totally love, with a separate shower and tub. Think it sounds great right? The tub was a kiddy-tub, short, low walls and square, certainly not something an adult could bath in without flooding the whole upstairs of the house! After reviewing the rest of the property, I picked up the flyer near the front door while the upstairs realtor made sure she asked me to ‘keep this place in mind, maybe for a friend or a co-worker’. As if she didn’t think I could afford the $2,295,000 price tag? What, did she log into my back account last night and check my balance? I felt like saying ‘Lady, I was about to put an offer in on this house, but the fact that you are going to make about $150,000 commission, I choose to keep looking’.

We dodged the swarms of people walking down the middle of the street and made our way out of the prestigious Kenwood neighborhood and headed home. Exhausted, but pleased with the day.