Bday wkd redux

A much shorter title this time around, just to make up for the excessive length of the first one.  Phew.

Ok, back to this bacon and champagne business.  My dear sweet friends brought me amazing treats from Texas in the form of Central Market tortillas and coffee (Taste of Austin, I ♥ you so much) with grand plans to make breakfast tacos to kick off the actual birthday.  Breakfast tacos we did, complete with crazy-thick slices of smoked bacon (everyone needs bacon on their birthday!) and some accompanying mimosas for sipping.  A hearty and heartwarming start to a rather drab and cloudy birthday day.  Oh, and as you can see, Almond Joys and Goldfish also made the journey to Texas - they understandably couldn't let the tortillas and coffee get lonely on the plane.

With breakfast tacos in our happy tummies, we headed out on another walking adventure, braving wind and a few clouds as we made our way around the National Mall with a stop here and there.  I will never, ever get tired of the National Museum of American History, and we made a stop there to check out Julia Child's kitchen and the flag that inspired the national anthem.  More walking walking walking as we made stops at the Washington Monument:

and the reflecting pool and the Lincoln Memorial and the Vietnam Memorial:

and some more beautiful fall trees:

and then through the Foggy Bottom/GW neighborhood to catch the Metro, where we encountered silly frat boys and one of the perpetual signs of college life, the ubiquitous red plastic cup (even though this one was sadly discarded):

After stopping in at Dupont Circle for some sustenance at Kramerbooks & Afterwords Cafe, we took our tired selves home for a break before meeting Dana at Oyamel for birthday dinner.  Of course it had to be Mexican food!  Mmmm, margaritas and guacamole and chilaquiles and plenty of cheese and tasty little tacos.  Now, we're talking old Mexico Mexican here, not Tex-Mex (somewhat sadly), and when the menu holds itself to that kind of authenticity, you might find something like chapulines on the menu.  Chapulines are...grasshoppers.  And at Oyamel they serve them sauteed with shallots, garlic, and tequila in a taco.  And I just had to try it.

Go ahead, finish your gagging and gasping now.

You know, it didn't taste half bad, but the texture thing was a little challenging.  I just had to!  I might be getting old (ok, I realize I'm not really that old, but I felt a little old at times last weekend), but I will always have my sense of culinary adventure.  Dana was the only one who captured the little grasshoppers with her camera, so you're just going to have to wait a little while for that one.

For the remainder of the birthday evening we beat out a man with a whistle to hail a cab amidst the raindrops and head out to U Street with a couple of stops for some drinkin' and dancin' with the Haloween crazies crowd.  There were definitely some unique costumes out there, but I think we made a pretty spectacular foursome of normally dressed people.

Brunch/lunch at The Diner in Adams Morgan in the rain, and then all too quickly it was time to head to the airport and hug my girls goodbye.  Fantastic birthday weekend, though, and I'm so glad I got to spend time with Kami and Carolyn!

You can catch my pictures from the weekend here, and I have a feeling there might be a post later in the month (this every day business could get a little bit tricky!) with some photographic detail of the grasshopper taco.  Because honestly, how many of you have chomped into a grasshopper taco?  I'm guessing zero.  And some pictures of the experience will probably help keep that count at zero - it's in your own best interest to just live vicariously through me on that one.