What a Wonderful Weekend!

I had one goal going in to last weekend: to spend some time at the National Gallery of Art.  As you undoubtedly know, I love to admire art and even dabble in some painting of my own, but nothing I've seen has ever rivaled the National Gallery.  A bit more on that in a moment.  The first act of the weekend, however, was to enjoy brunch at a U St. coffee shop/poetry cafe/bookstore called Busboys and Poets.  My co-worker and instant East Coast friend, Caroline, invited me to brunch with her, her husband, and a couple of their visiting friends.  A little like a cross between The Little Cheerful and Portage Bay Cafe, B&P pays homage to Langston Hughes, who apparently slipped some of his poetry to Vachel Lindsay when he was working as a busboy.

 
The bookstore inside the restaurant featured poetry, lots of memoirs, more than the usual selection about social change, and benefits Teaching for Change, a local social justice/education alliance. The restaurant itself, a mixture of armchairs with students lounging across them and circular booths beneath art-filled walls, offered up a simple yet distinctly East Coast version of brunch, including crab cake eggs Benedict and perfect french toast.



Heading back to the Metro after brunch, Caroline's group decided to tag along to my trip to the National Gallery of Art.  I'll save the majority of my commentary on the gallery until after I've been able to explore more than the 1/30 or so I got around to on Saturday.  I didn't even make it all the way through the incredible George Bellows visit currently on display, let alone the entire American wing.

Some of the most spectacular that I did manage to see, however, included Winslow Homer's Breezing Up, John Singleton Copley's Watson and the Shark (which also features a hilarious description of the events and subject of the painting, including a describing Brook Watson as having "manifested a predilection for the sea," which Caroline and I both laughed at), and Gilbert Stuart's portraits of the early presidents. Hopefully there will be many more descriptions to come after I find time to return!


My plan to wander aimlessly through the gallery came to an abrupt end when Caroline invited me to join them to go wine tasting and to a polo match in Virginia! How could I pass that up? We drove a little over an hour outside the city and into northern Virginia, nearly to West Virginia. After passing through the suburbs of DC, rolling pastures dotted with mansions, and finally to rural hay fields, we turned on to a dirt road to reach the most beautiful little winery on top of a "mountain."

We enjoyed a tasting of some fantastic Willowcroft whites, including some I've never heard of and can't remember, which were delicious and refreshing.  

Our next stop down the rural highway was for dinner.  All of us were hungry and we entered the first place we saw as we drove through the tiny, picturesque town of Middleburg, VA (pop. 600). Julien's Cafe was decorated with a certain brand of outdated pretentiousness that one might imagine accompanying a wannabe bistro in a town filled with roman numeral names and people who might not visit a city all too often. Nonetheless, Julien's bowtied waiters offered us locally raised beef, more affordable wine, and a salmon and Swiss cheese quiche (that I gobbled up). When pressed, our waiter also divulged that in Middleburg, all people did was watch polo and party.

That description made more and more sense as we continued south and the scenery began to shift toward larger homes and horse stables demarcated from one another by placards and short stone walls. Upon arriving in an area called Old Tavern, VA, we begrudgingly got out of the car (Did I mention it was 106 that day? Here's the iPhone weather report to prove it:

                                                                  ) and headed toward the polo arena.

The junior polo match was already under way when we arrived, but with two matches headlining the twilight festivities, many of the fans were just setting up.  Around a dirt arena were about a dozen groups of box seats, where people had brought their families, food, and alcohol to party the night away.  Decked out in polo shirts, bermuda shorts, and sockless loafers were the young and old upper crust of the greater DC area (even the port-a-potties were fancy... carpeted, flush toilets, sinks, and lights!).  People also relaxed on blankets and in picnic chairs in the grass behind the box seating, pickups backed in to provide easy tailgating access, and families set up long buffet tables of drinks and picnic food.

 All in all, I couldn't have asked for a better introduction to Virginia for my first weekend back east!