Day Date w/ Emily!

Today was a de-lightful day spent in the city with my friend Emily. Em is one of my closest friends from high school and is still hanging around NOVA, like me, livin' the life.

We ventured into DC in the morning and I met Em at one of the many many Starbucks in the area. After getting turned around a bit and being at two different Starbucks, we finally met up and got our caffeine. We then got to 1 of our 2 activities planned for the day and paid a visit to the Spy Museum which sits in between Chinatown and PennQuarters. The Spy Museum was quite fun. I had wanted to visit it for awhile now and was glad when Em suggested it the other day. After we came up the elevator, we were made to chose identities of "spies" and learn our specs, which we would be tested on throughout our visit. I picked Maria Rivera from Tenochtitlan, Mexico. I was supposedly a 17-year old student visiting Adel, Iowa for 13 days on vacation...little did Adel, Iowa know I was actually there in search for certain important bits of information. I clearly remember my cover pretty well...

Emily and I then moved on into the main exhibit. The museum was divided into two main sections - the first was a look at many of the gadgets and bios of defected and discovered spies. The other part of the museum contained exhibits on the history of spying, which harked back to my days in Gerald Haines's class on the History of Espionage at UVA. The latter half of the museum was less fun/appealing to us but it was a great experience overall.

It was then a little after 2pm so we headed to Jaleo to grab some awesome food and watch the Spain v. Germany world cup game. Without much to do this summer, I have been an avid futbol fan. I've watched almost every game and just adore soccer!

We ordered a half pitcher (span: jarra) of red Sangria and started with three tapas dishes: Pan con tomate y jamon Salamanca, then some freakishly awesome shrimp dish that Em loves, and finally Boquetas de Bacalao (my choice! - breaded cod! sooo good. I was obsesssssed w/ it in Spain back in April w/ mi hermana). Then we finished our drinks and our food and still wanted more. The game was scoreless, the bartender was amusing...so we ordered another half pitcher and a tapas of mussels. Yumm Yumm Yumm. I love good food, good drinks, and good(looking) soccer!

Fabulous day. Love you Em!