In which Layla and Roz make their first friends, see their first DC storytelling, and explore new areas

by Layla


Ah, it is always a great sorrow when a weekend draws to a close, but particularly for me, as I have had a lovely weekend of Roz time and Monday approaches with her going off to work and me seeking purpose in my life… but that’s still a while away.

We had a very nice weekend. It started with Roz going off on a run to Capitol Hill, still overexcited by the fun of seeing all the sights of Washington on one’s running route. I tarted up my CV and had a sneaky read of my book. And then we headed out to Dupont Circle, to meet our very first potential non-work-related friends, a boy who writes a book blog introduced to Roz through her London book club circles, and his boyfriend. And we had a really lovely lunch. Upon sitting down, book blog boy produced a bag from Kramer Books, crammed with six volumes – it turned out he’d bought six books for Roz, his top recommendations covering the different aspects of life in America. We were both quite overwhelmed by both the thoughtfulness and generosity. We had a cheery lunch afterwards, chatting about all sorts of things (yet more clever people with exciting jobs), and eventually left with promises of meeting up again.

We turned around and ran straight into a lesbian couple we’d met at a party on our recce visit last month, on their way back from a visit to the women’s art museum. Delightfully stereotypical, and it made us feel very local. And so we headed to Georgetown for some unsuccessful furniture shopping and some more successful chocolate shopping…

That night was our first big Washington expedition – to a storytelling event at the other side of the city. I peered nerdily at the maps until eventually Roz rolled her eyes, threw me in a cab, and soon we emerged at a Hackney-esque area, home to the Atlas Arts Centre and our storytelling night. Other than having to down beers after buying them, only to be told we couldn’t drink in the theatre, it was a brilliant night. The eight stories were all winners from previous storytelling nights throughout the year. Immediately afterwards, we looked up the next one and booked it up!

After dinner we decided to branch out from the ubiquitous Italian and venture to the local Indian restaurant, Taj Mahal. And very nice and cheery it was too, with lovely staff and pleasant food. We sauntered home afterwards, feeling very pleased with ourselves.

This morning the sun was still out and after some pfaffing, breakfast, CV polishing, and fighting with the internet, we headed out on the Circulator bus to Logan Circle to continue our doomed hunt for furniture. But first we needed fuel – in the form of Masa 14 restaurant’s bottomless brunch. Over mimosas, ‘breakfast pizza’, ‘home fries’, and other such tasty morsels, we gathered strength and then headed out to splutter at the cost of sofas and long for a DFS equivalent.

Still lacking in furniture, we took a bus and metro to Friendship Heights, home to lots of big department stores such as Bloomingdales, and also – oh joy – TK Maxx, where we bought lots of items of the sheet/towel/pot variety before hopping sofa-less onto a bus that took us straight home. Excellent.

It’s tempting to stay at home tonight but we haven’t quite mastered shopping yet… and a local Lebanese restaurant is calling…