Behind the Blue Door
March 29th, 2008 | Posted by Shannon
Sometimes, when I travel, a city’s charm and vibe hit me right away, and I immediately love it. Othertimes, it takes some days to unravel the layers that make a place great. Madrid and Venice were “right away” ones. Barcelona and Florence were “takes some days” ones. I think the cities that take more time are almost more interesting in the end, because I am always waiting for that moment when it all makes sense, and I like that feeling of waiting. And I like exploring.
It’s like I was telling Bob & Margaret the other night, over some really great pizzas and quite a few glasses of wine, that I hadn’t quite crossed the threshold of understanding the essence of DC yet. I was still waiting for the epiphany, that moment when everything becomes awesome. Now, it is all about the epiphany. They keep asking me if it has happened yet.
Two days ago, I went to the National Portrait Gallery and Museum of American Art, and walked around Chinatown, and met some Slowtrav Peeps at Dino. I had this thought that I could go to TWO museums in one day, and voila, there are two museums in one building, and it was massive and took many hours and I did not even see everything there. It was a really great day and I managed to pack a lot in and also realized that one would need many months, if not years, to see all this stuff.
Yesterday the housecleaner came so I had to get out of here at 8:30, even before the museums opened. I went to Union Station and ate a corn muffin and watched all the commuters. That station is so cool. Yet, the epiphany eluded me.
I headed down to the National Gallery of Art and got there right when they opened. I was there for FOUR HOURS and I did not even make it through the whole thing – not even close. I was totally blown away – they have an incredible collection of Renaissance art there, not only from Italy but also Germany and the Netherlands and I love all that stuff. I was especially touched by the painting “Adoration of the Shepards” by Giorgione. The colors, the landscape, the torn clothing of the shepards… it’s a remarkable piece. And nobody was even looking at it, they were all in the room with Leonardo’s Ginevra.
So I guess at this point I was very close, because it dawned on me that if you lived in DC, you could go to the Natonal Gallery every day, even just to look at one painting. You could go in and look at a German painting with detailed depictions of life 500 years ago, for an hour or two, whenever you want. Because it is free!
After that I met up with Bob & Margaret and we walked up to Georgetown and had some oysters and welsh rarebit at the tavern where JFK proposed to Jackie O. But we wanted some better wine, so I looked in my DK book and found a wine bar in Georgetown called “Bistrot Lepic.” We had to walk up a hill, and I will admit I am very sore from all this walking, but the call of wine kept me/us going, to what seemed to be out of Georgetown, even. When we got to the bar, there was a blue door and a Parisian street sign. I wondered if they went to Paris and stole it, because it looked pretty damn real.
In the door, up those stairs, was where I finally had my epiphany.
Bistrot Lepic is AWESOME. If I lived in DC, I would want to go there all the time. THAT is where people should get proposed to. It’s a room that envelops you, with mood music, what looked to be comfy wicker chairs (we sat at the bar, which was very, very comfy, so I am assuming the chairs were the same) and gold curtains that moved in the breeze. In the back, there was a long table to seat twenty with cherry trees outside. We drank Burgundies (both white and red) and Rhones, and the sweet Bartendress Lucia poured us a little taste of a really good Languedoc. We ate country pate with an Armagnac soaked prune in the middle. I totally fell in love with the place. I am totally in love with it. We needed bread for our pasta dinner at home, so Lucia sent us out with an long loaf of French bread. She rocks.
Any city that could have such a cool wine bar, is, in my mind, a great city. There it is – the epiphany. Long in coming but now that it is here I plan to make the most of it.
Today we are off to the Cherry Blossom festival and more wandering, and tonight we are going to see EELS at a synagogue. Bob read my blog entry about this show and he is giving me a little bit of shit about the “movie” but I keep telling him that he will love it, especially because he is a scientist. As for me, I couldn’t pass up the chance to see E again…
Onward.
