Photo Week #14

Get ready for a lot of photos in this week’s post, because I had a very photogenic east coast weekend trip with lots of friends and flowers. I spent the last 30 minutes trying to figure out how to get flexbox to work with my Bootstrap-dependent theme, so that I could evenly display more photos in a smaller space (I cannot stand uneven margins) but it took too long and I really should be doing homework instead of writing this post, so just skip this post or scroll really fast if you don’t have time to look at all the photos.

After a delayed red-eye flight to New York, I made the long trek from JFK to the Upper East Side where Stacy introduced me to her New York Life by taking me to H&H Bagels (not pictured here because I realized cream cheese in mass quantities is not that appealing to look at), Hutch & Waldo, and PQR (pizza). And then we were off again! We successfully ran across the extremely crowded sidewalks of midtown to barely make our bus to Maryland.

We were lucky enough to be in DC during peak bloom season – and it did not disappoint.

A few other things we did besides look at flowers and say to ourselves, “Why do we need to run 10 miles in the cold to look at flowers when we can just look at them on the sidewalk without having to run”: eat ice cream at Jeni’s, which is apparently $14 per pint in a normal grocery store (it was good, but definitely very pricey), visit the Museum of Natural History, the Newseum (and watch the Masters at the Newseum), and the Renwick Gallery, and eat bottomless brunch (and drink bottomless mimosas!) at Boqueria after we ran. I definitely felt pretty woozy during brunch, drinking on a pretty empty stomach, but it was a good reward for running 10 miles. I somehow ate pizza three times during this past trip – including a self-designed pizza from &pizza as a carbo-load before our race. I love making my own pizzas (without any number of topping restrictions) because I can pick everything I like to eat, like olives and jalapeños, and no one will object.

The run itself went well, except that I never ever want to be that cold in my life ever again. I was also very very sore afterwards (surprisingly, in my knees, which normally don’t hurt after I run). Hopefully I will be more in shape for the Big Sur run coming up at the end of this month, especially since there will be more uphills… this one was pretty flat, so the run was somewhat enjoyable, and of course the cherry blossoms were gorgeous!

After we hobbled our way back home – which included a free train ride, since our train cards hadn’t reloaded in time and the station agent took pity on us – we decided to go back towards the cherry blossoms along the tidal basin so we could take more photos. It reminded me of the cherry blossom season in Japan when I visited a few years ago – tons and tons of tourists taking photos, either patiently waiting for their turn to take a photo when there would be the least amount of people in their photo, or shamelessly edging themselves in between groups and leaning to get the best angle of the blossoms in the background. We did a combination of both, including Cindy accidentally telling a very kind “tall man” to get out of the way of my solo photo.

And then it was back to New York for a quick afternoon of more #millennial #basic #blushpink things, at the Glossier showroom and Cha Cha Matcha for a “doissant” that was more yummy than expected.

I also got to see some of my April birthday friends, who, now that I think of it, all live on the East Coast, except for my brother. Weird!

It was a whirlwind weekend that went by way too fast, and I already miss the good friends that I got to spend time with. Until next time! Cherry blossoms, thanks for being beautiful, and friends, thank you for spending time with me and being beautiful too!