The silliest thing I ever did in Washington

If a vampire had a bar, it would look just like Little Miss Whiskey's Golden Dollar.

And that's probably the last thing he would ever name it.

Inside Little Miss Whiskey's Golden Dollar

I've never been to a bar quite like Little Miss Whiskey's Golden Dollar. It's a wonderfully strange place. My friends and I wound up here one Wednesday night, in search of a place to sing karaoke to celebrate a friend's last night in town. It was a pain to find. Located on H St. NE between 11th and 12th, it's inside a little white row house that is not clearly marked, and we were a little hesitant going in. When we got in, we may have become even more hesitant. It looked like a townie bar that had gotten bit by a vampire. With purple-ish wallpaper, it was dark and dingy, and had a clientele not too far off from that description. Nervously, we asked the bartender where the karaoke was. This didn't come off as a karaoke type of place. He said upstairs, and we made our way up a little staircase and emerged into a bigger room, still covered in the creepy purple wallpaper, random, odd art and knick-knacks all around.

Little Miss Whiskey's is the
white row house on the right

We all immediately ordered Long Islands.

"Careful," the bartender warned us. "We're famous here at Little Miss Whiskey's for our very strong Long Islands."

I think we all took that as a good thing. Then we noticed something along the wall near the karaoke stage that was bizarre, even for this place - costumes. This wasn't just your regular karaoke night - it was costume karaoke night.

Soon, the regulars starting filing in, the Long Islands coursed through our veins, and we found ourselves taking turns with the microphone on stage, donning bright orange feather boas and lime green afro wigs. Little Miss Whiskey's had taken a quick turn from eerie awkwardness to electric ecstasy. It didn't take long for the whole crowd to get in to each and every song. The night ended with a rousing, drunken rendition of Journey's "Don't Stop Believing."

the crowded dance floor at Little Miss Whiskey's

the upstairs bar at Little Miss Whiskey's

If you are in Washington, DC - go to Little Miss Whiskey's Golden Dollar. It started off a little freaky, yes, but my friends and I had so much fun once we settled in. This is not your typical bar - it's a wacky, carefree change of pace that you will not regret. Once the karaoke got going, you'll find every brand of person here - young and old, men and women, tattooed and preppy. And by the end of the night, each one is best friends with the next, throwing their arms around each others' shoulders in carefree harmony.

One problem - it's a bit of a trek from any metro. The closest stops are Union Station and New York Avenue.

But it's worth the walk, without a doubt.

D.C. - not exactly a sports town

I'm a Chicago girl. And as any good Chicagoan, I am a major fan of all Chicago sports teams - da Bears, da Bulls, da Hawks and da Cubs (there is no other baseball team here...). So when a friend of mine in D.C. offered me free tickets to see the Bulls play the Washington Wizards back in February, I was naturally thrilled. Then I came to realize - the experience of watching a game in D.C. is entirely different than in Chicago.

empty Wizards stadium

I got to the Wizards stadium a little early, so when the majority of the seats weren't filled, I wasn't too shocked. Then tip-off time came. Still, majority of the stadium not filled. And that's how it stayed, the entire  game. Well, not quite... the stadium started to empty even further at half-time. The Bulls were, naturally, crushing the crap out of the Wizards. Cheers from Bulls fans drowned out those of the the Wizards fans by far, but the experience was nothing in comparison to the mad house United Center in Chicago. Another difference - the attire. In Chicago, everyone supports the team by wearing their colors, or jerseys. In D.C., there was a much higher proportion of people wearing suits. As I've said before, I've never seen a city so filled with people wearing suits. The game came off as more of an alternative to happy hour than a game.

Andrew, me and Kate at the Nats game

I had a similar experience with a Washington Nationals game in April. I was excited to see the game, as the Nationals were playing the dreaded Mets. But I felt like I was the only one there to actually watch the game. It cost just $5 to get into the stadium, but once my friends and I were in, we never actually made it to our nosebleed seats. Why bother when there is a large bar located in the outfield, with plenty of standing room and an even better view of the field than what I assume we would have had from our seats. And even better - on the floor below the bar was a restaurant, with outdoor seating, a wide variety of beer options, waiters bringing you yummy fried goodness, and a completely uninhibited view of the field. The view we had would have cost me about $50 at Wrigley field, I would've had two beer choices - Bud and Old Style, and the waiters would have been replaced by cranky men screaming "HOT DOGS! GET YOUR HOT DOGS!" at the top of their lungs. Nationals stadium was a completely different experience than what baseball should be. I had a great time, don't get me wrong, but it felt more like going to dinner and drinks with friends, and there just happened to be a baseball game being played next to us. Most people there were more interested in their conversations than the game. The whole experience was very clean and fun, and I would definitely do it again if given the chance, but I would never trade Wrigley for it. Wrigley, where peanut shells decorate the floors, sticky from beer; where bleacher bums drunkenly yell at the opposing teams' outfielders until they are kicked out; where fans actually know the stats, AND the names, of the players; and where everyone in the stadium joins together for a rousing chorus of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" in the middle of the 7th and "Go Cubs Go" if we actually win at the end of the 9th. Where the passion of the fans and the love of the game are contagious.

That's something you just won't find in Washington, D.C. Everyone there is from somewhere else. No one has that pride to be from D.C. that you see in Chicago, New York, or Boston. I loved D.C., but the sports teams really made me miss Sweet Home Chicago.

If you are in D.C. and are suffering from Chicago withdrawal, fear not! There's a place to call home during football season. Union Pub on Massachusetts Ave. shows all Bears games, and even has an outdoor patio if you miss the authenticity of freezing your ass off at Soldier Field. You can also find the Chicago-brewed 312, my all-time favorite beer, on tap here. Make sure to get in early! Due to that wonderful loyalty of Chicago fans, this place crowds up quick.

I was even lucky enough to get a Hawks sighting while in D.C. I got to cover the Hawks being honored by the president on the White House south lawn, and a clinic they held afterwards with the first lady to teach D.C. youth to play hockey. Just inches away from Patrick Kane's face. Outstanding experience.

Tune Inn tuned out!

FIRE!

Last week I was really sad to read that the Tune Inn kitchen caught on fire. It's a well-known dive bar on Pennsylvania Ave., just a few blocks from where I lived in Washington, DC, southeast of the Capitol. Nobody was hurt, but the entire kitchen has to be gutted. Looks like it's going to be a while until one of Capitol Hill's favorite dives is back up and running. The bar, once featured on Guy Fieri's Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, is amping up support on Facebook, trying to raise funds to support employees while the fixing's being done.

In light of this event, I would like to take some time to explore the Capitol Hill bar scene, particularly the block of Pennsylvania Ave. between 3rd and 4th Streets SE (where the Tune Inn is located)...

First things first... the Tune Inn:

It's a little place. Narrow, long bar in the front, wood-paneled, booths in the back. What caught my eye the first time I walked in was the decor. There's local kitsch, plaques boasting pictures of little league teams the bar had sponsored, but most strikingly - animal heads. (Butts too, if you happen to wander towards the bathrooms...) You get a wide range of people here. Old men sitting at the bar. Capitol Hill staffers. The occasional family (during the day). They serve up your traditional bar food - fried, greasy goodness. I got the chicken strips and tater tots there once, quite tasty. The place has a lot of history. The same family has owned and run the bar since 1947. This bar has character, no doubt. It is distinctly American. Friends from Columbia, Mo. - it reminds me a lot of Booches. If taxidermy doesn't bother you, this place will make you feel right at home.


The Hawk n' Dove:

Oh dear... this was one of the first bars I went to in DC and I will certainly never forget it. The Hawk n' Dove (located right next to the Tune Inn) is an intern bar. It's dark inside, very sketchy looking. The first floor is not too far off from the Tune Inn... small, long bar towards the front, various taxidermy decorations. But it's much darker in here, a good place for Hill interns to run off too after a long, hard day of ingratiating work for which they are not paid. From 5-9, you see a younger crowd grabbing beers and cheap wings. My personal favorite was the deep fried "Capitol" onion - think bloomin' onion from Outback. Then after 10p.m., the party starts. The second floor of the Hawk n' Dove is home to a dance floor and DJ spinning top 40 hits and hip hop. The crowd is 18-early 20s (you can get in at 18, but all under 21s get wrist bands). It gets VERY loud. There will be no hope of a conversation. Late at night, there will be a line to get in. Not because the Hawk n' Dove is some fancy, pretentious, hyper-exclusive club - it's just small and can only hold so many drunken interns. As a 21-year old intern who loves to dance but is not totally into the club scene, I had fun here.

Pour House:

The Pour House seems to me like the definition of your standard bar. I didn't spend much time here, but when I did, it was just to sit with some friends, share a pitcher and chat. Everyone else was doing the same. There are a whole bunch of TVs if you want to watch a game, some arcade games and darts. There's music but it's not loud or distracting like the second floor of the Hawk n' Dove. No awkward animals popping out of walls like the Tune Inn. Just your standard pub to chill with friends. There is, however, a second floor here. I unfortunately missed this, but some of my friends got into a political fundraiser being held upstairs at Pour House - complete with free beer. All I heard about this night were raves - likely free-beer-induced, but nonetheless, keep an eye out for open bar fundraisers here.

These three bars are a pretty good representation of the Capitol Hill bar scene. It's nothing fancy. Not pretentious. Not classy. And it doesn't pretend to be anything it's not. If all you're looking for is a no-frills beer with some buddies after work, and you don't care if you are in the company of very old men or very young interns, head to Penn Ave.

Also on this block are some DC hot spots I've mentioned earlier in this blog... Good Stuff Eatery, We The Pizza and my favorite Starbucks in DC.

Eastern Market

I glossed over shopping at Eastern Market in one of my first posts, but that visit had been in the winter time. Shopping at Eastern Market in the spring and summer is a completely different, and much more enjoyable experience. There are a HUGE number of vendors to choose from during these seasons. While all that's available in the winter are the indoor food vendors, spring and summer shopping include a little bit - no, a LOT - of everything. Jewelry, art, furniture, clothing, food... and sooooo much more. I'll tell you about some of my favorite things I've found at Eastern Market...

Eastern Market (well... part of it)

First, I have to talk about jewelry. You can find any and every style here, pretty much. Smaller, delicate pieces, to large, chunky, tribal-inspired pieces. It can get pretty pricey. I bought one necklace - a turquoise stone surrounded by a gold and rhinestone frame on a gold chain. It was $10, by far the cheapest thing I found there. My roommate bough a very cool, African-inspired silver necklace. We're wearing them here:

Heading to Georgetown for the day, wearing our lovely Eastern Market necklaces

Next, the art. Like with jewelry, you can find a little of everything - painting, photography, even some sculpting. One of my favorite artists built giraffes, frogs and lizards out of soda and beer cans. They were a little pricey though, so I never bought one (though I really wanted to). I did buy two paintings - one a was a painting of the national mall made to look like Van Gogh's Starry Night. The other was a painting of the Jefferson Memorial and cherry blossoms.

Eastern Market paintings

Beer can giraffes

A slightly random, but neat little innovation I found at the Market was a little old lady selling nail files made from glass. They were very pretty, worked well and, according to her, last forever. Again, too pricey for me (I was definitely doing DC on a budget...), but very cool.

Not the exact ones I saw at the Market, but similar

Last, but certainly not least, are the delicious foods the Market vendors serve up in the spring and summer. My roommate came home once with amazing smoked ribs. Another popular item are Migue's Magnificent Mini Donuts.

Migue's donuts

Eastern Market is open Tuesday - Friday, 7a.m. - 7 p.m., Saturday 7a.m. - 6 p.m., and Sunday 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. It is closed Monday. The closest metro is the Eastern Market metro.

I'm back! Well, for a bit at least...

Oops! It seems that I have been neglecting my blog... sorry about that folks. On May 5, my internship with the Daily Herald ended, and I moved out of DC and back to my hometown of Palatine, IL (that's a suburb of Chicago... excellent!).

So I've been here, settling back in and working as a communications intern for the Western Golf Association and Evans Scholars Foundation (same place I worked at last summer, and a wonderful organization). Here, I do a variety of things, but my biggest project is working on the Evans Scholars Alumni magazine, the Mac Report. You can check out a story I wrote last summer here, about an outstanding Evans Scholar Alum who took a year off from working at one of the nation's top consulting firms to volunteer in India.

*A bit of background, Evans Scholars are golf caddies with excellent academics, financial need and outstanding character who are awarded full tuition and housing scholarships to college by the Evans Scholars Foundation, which is administered by the Western Golf Association.

Anywho... even though I am no longer in DC, I still have some great blogging material! So stayed tuned for a little while longer for more on life in our nation's capitol :)

Last night's celebration, bin Laden & 9/11 - looking back

As I've been writing about last night's celebration of Osama bin Laden's death, one theme kept popping up - the crowd was mostly college kids. That got me thinking... why college kids?

My first thought was, duh, college kids will take any opportunity available to party. And I'm sure that was partly true. But there was more to last night than drunken revelry. While the crowd did smell like booze a bit, it appeared to be less drunken Greeks and more students, like my friends and myself, who had just rolled out of bed, stone cold sober, but totally high on the euphoria of the situation.

Then a memory hit me. I was at the Newseum a few weeks ago with my friend, Jaime, and we visited the 9/11 exhibit there. The exhibit is home to a very poignant video about the disaster that left us both tearing up and walking away silent, and shaken up.

When we finally spoke, we talked about where we were when we found out planes had hit the twin towers. I was walking up the steps at Frank C. Whiteley Elementary School to Mrs. Hogan's sixth grade classroom with my friend Brittany, who told me that planes had crashed into the twin towers. I was 11 years old, and I honestly had no idea what the twin towers were, much less that our entire world had changed forever that morning.

And then, after Jaime and I finished our stories, Jaime said this - I'm trying to remember a time before 9/11, but I can't. I tried, and realized I couldn't really remember either. I can't remember what it was like to go to an airport without a little apprehension, and of course without removing my shoes and tossing out my water bottle. I don't remember a world without the fear of terrorism.

At that's when I realized why it was students who were celebrating outside the gates of the White House that night. They didn't remember either. And when we were told the symbol of the terror that cast a dark shadow over our world for most of our memorable lives was dead, we couldn't help but gather.

I was watching John King on CNN when I heard it. It was surreal, and hard to believe. King kept repeating the phrase "Osama bin Laden is dead, Osama bin Laden is dead," over and over, trying to get it to sink in. This is for real.

I read somewhere that it was silly for us to celebrate, because bin Laden was likely hardly even effective any more. They're missing the point. More than anything, he was a symbol. A symbol of thousands of our people dead, a symbol of evil, a symbol of fear. Yes, we know the fight against terrorism is not over, not even close. But this is undeniably a step. We killed fear.

Videos: Celebration of Bin Laden's Death Outside White House

Here are some videos I took on my iPhone at the celebration outside the White House late Sunday night, after President Obama announced Osama Bin Laden is dead.

The crowd chants "Obama!"

You can catch the end of the National Anthem here as a young man hangs a flag on a light post and a beach ball flies over the crowd

Not sure why... but these next two came out sideways... ate the beginning of this one you can catch they end of "na na na na, hey hey hey, goodbye," at the end you can hear a group of students chanting "I believe that we will win" as they jump up and down in the crowd.

Here the whole crowd sings the National Anthem... it gets a bit messy by the end, but that's what happens when you have this many people try to sing