Searching for a Destination Unknown: August 2012

Friday, August 31, 2012

DC's Best Kept Brunch Secret

Well, now the cat's outta the bag. I'm telling you, DC's best kept brunch secret is Agora...its all you can eat AND drink (yes, alcohol) for $30. You just can't beat that! Now the price doesn't included soda, juice, or coffee, but come on...you can fork over a few extra doll-ahrs since you're getting such a good deal. Every single time I've gone here, I've left schwasted. The food is yummy and it just keeps coming. Now, if you do come in a group of 6 or more, there is a 2 hour limit, however, if just a few of you come...let the PARTAY begin. Even the times I go with a few friends, I can't make it longer than 2 hours. The food comma sets in and I'm so full I can't drink any more.

If you pester the waitress enough, she'll just bring over the vat of mimosas so you can drink to your heart's content!

If you want to see the brunch menu, go here. The food is Mediterranean tapas meant to share with the whole table. If you don't want to share something, then you need to order two :)

I give it an A++

Agora Restaurant
1527 17th Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20036
(202) 332-6767

You can even make reservations at Open Table.

I was too busy eating and drinking to take many pictures, but here are three:

You can just request for the whole carafe of mimosas :)

The only rules for the $30 brunch item menu:

Everyone at the table has to order it
Any alcohol is free; you have to pay extra for any soda, tea, juice or coffee. However, if you get alcohol with the juice is FREE. Yep, I ordered a vodka and cranberry :)

The food is just SO amazing. We kept the waiter busy while he brought multiple rounds of food!

Staaaaaaycation!

(source)

I'm SUPER excited, I'm planning a STAYCATION!!!! I get an extended Labor Day weekend and I'm packing my bags, heading south, and taking off some additional days. It really sucks that the bf and I live 3 hours away, so we'll be playing house for a week while I visit. I'm literally so exhausted from work my body is literally revolting so I can't wait to unwind and hang out with the boy and all my girlfriends!!

I'll be taking a blog-vacation too! Stay tuned for all my fun staycation moments :) Happy Labor Day weekend!

Do you ever take staycations? What do you like to do?

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Winery Hoping in Charlottesville

I had SUCH an amazing time with the girls in Charlottesville. Its so rare that I get to hang out with the girls sans boys. Crystal decided that we should do this and took the reins to plan it! Planning for such a big group of opinionated girls is no small task!

The Blenheim farms (Dave Matthews winery) was AH-MAZING. The building, the wines, the VIEW. It was amazing! It was really laid back and calm there. We all packed some food and then after our tasting, we bought some bottles and then sat outside and opened up our lunch. The weather was truly amazing, we couldn't have asked for better weather. Funny enough, the next day was a torrential down-pour and drinking home in the rain sucked. ANYWAYS.

If you want to read a really good article about the winery, click here!

Winery list! We tasted 6 wines for a measley $5!!!!! Then each glass was only $5 too. I never knew wineries were SO CHEAP. They bank on you buying bottles, which I totally did! Several I may add. I actually liked all 6 bottles, which I don't really like white wines.

I wish there were extra glasses on the table for water. All that wine on an empty tummy spells a disaster.

Beautiful big open windows. Too bad my iPhone sucks at taking pictures like that.

Wine makin' parts. Wish I had taken the winery tour but the girls just wanted to do the tasting..Im going to have to go back!

Why, hello there!

Guest sign-in sheet

AND you get a free glass!!

MMMMMMM yummy!

Beautiful!

The beams in here are just gorgous!

So nice inside

Wow, such a view!

Beautiful!

Our lunch, a mix

On to the next place! The Trump winery. Donald's son owns this winery.

You get 9 tastings for $10. AND a free glass!

ICK I really hated every one of these wines..gross.

After winery hopping, we decided to head to downtown Charlottesville. Its really a gorgeous little town feel! We ate at this AH-MAZING place called Zocalo. The food was so good! I had the duck for dinner and it was YUMMY

There was this fun art project where there's these big chalk boards and you get to write on them :)

Erika writing a message

pretty cool

Now its Miller time! No, seriously, the bar is called Millers. This bar is TOTALLY fun!!!

One side of the tables (Emily, me, and Erika)

And the other side (Jess, Crystal, and Melissa

They had a really good band!

I had SUCH a good time, and I can't wait to visit again!!!

Sunday, August 26, 2012

This Day in History v.31

One of my favourite things to do in London was walking with Hannah in the city, on what we called "Cultural Sundays". We really did our best to take advantage of living in the city and not be complacent. We pushed our usually hungover bodies out of bed and got in the crisp London air and enjoyed living around the city. We spotted a few interesting things along the way. We usually walked in one direction and would see where it took us. I always carried around my London A to Z maps so just in case we got lost, we could refer to that. That map book was the best 10 pounds I've ever spent in my life. I didn't have enough money for a smart phone back then, so paper map book it was! Here are a few of the pictures of our walks:

A castle in the middle of the city?

London is so pretty in the spring time!

Hannah's straight 'outta Compton!

HAHAHAHAH I had to giggle every time we passed this place!!

Of course we had to play with the red phonebooths!

Strike a pose!

I hope one day this will be me!

Cool clock tower near the park that Hannah envisioned she will get married in one day!

We joked that this was Mary, Mary, and Martha watching over us in Lion form :)

Friday, August 24, 2012

Gah

The cost and sheer size of some of the houses in Northern Virginia and DC astound me. Some of them sit empty waiting for the market to swing back up and that someone can afford them. Just LOOK at the size of some of these:

I cringe when I see near my apartment "townhomes in the 900s". OMFG, almost a million for a 2 story townhome?!?!?!

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Silopanna Music Festival

2 weekends ago I went to an outdoor festival with the boy in Annapolis, called Silopanna. Not sure what's the story behind the ugly name, but whatevs. A small local festival with a big line up! Cake, Citizen Cope, G Love and Special Sauce, and Robert Randolph were the headliners and a bunch of local bands in between. The day was hot, but no where near as hot as Bonaroo 2 years ago! There was a brief ridic rain storm complete with lightening minutes before Citizen Cope was set to come on stage. Thankfully Matt was driving because they had us all return to our vehicles and then come back when the storm passed through. The rain didn't damper the show, we returned and sat in the rain while Cope performed! Here are some pictures: