Just helped a guy who doesn't speak English connect to the WiFi at our hostel. The world is a wonderful place.

150 Years Later.

Today might have been a first. Three (kind of) balanced meals from three different restaurants on the list. I'll start with breakfast since it's the first meal of the day! 

We went to Astro Doughtnuts & Fried Chicken for breakfast. There wasn't any fried chicken to be had in the morning (not that I could have had it anyways) but I did try the creme brulee donut. I got it because I didn't want to get just a plain donut and I really liked it. I wasn't expecting a cream filling but it was yummy. I really liked the crunch which is a weird thing to say about the donut, but I say what I feel. My donut is the squarish one if you look at the picture on the lefthand side of your screen.

Now, we are good thespians and that means a trip to the theatre and in DC, that mean's Ford's Theatre. Yes, that theatre. The theatre that uses Abraham Lincoln's face as part of their logo (not kidding -- I wonder how long they waited before they made that design choice). 

So, Mrs. Lincoln, what'd ya think of the play?

I liked the sign that said "No Firearms Permitted" that was posted as we walked into Ford's Theatre. It's about 150 years too late, but I'm sure it's useful all the same. The first half of the tour is self-guided and takes you through the whole Civil War up until the assassination, at which point you get to go into the theatre. In the theatre, we watched a really weird one-man show from the perspective of the man who killed John Wilkes Booth. It was interesting, but odd.

After that, we walked back to the National Mall, where I discovered more snap stickers! Long live the snapstickers! Viva la snapstickers! Carpe de snapstickers!!!!! We went to the Air and Space Museum and then the Museum of Natural History, both of which I've already been to and will admit being a little bored at but still very cool. 

After museum hopping, we went lunch hunting. There isn't a lot of food by the mall so we just wandered until we found a place we'd passed yesterday, District Taco. When we passed yesterday, I told Melissa that I thought it might be on the list but today I verified and there it was so District Taco became our lunch destination. 

I must make a confession... I didn't get a taco. I got a quesadilla. I got a quesadilla that had black beans and shrimp on it. Who am I? (Ok, I've pretty much always liked shrimp but the black beans are new).  I even liked it. So weird...

Post-tacos (post quesadillas?) we walked back up the street and went to the International Spy Museum. Like the Smithsonian, I had already been here BUT a person can never tire of espionage. Especially when that person was 12 the last time they were at the museum and knew very little about the Soviet Union, KGB, the real life story behind the Academy Award-winning film, Argo, and didn't have the patience to read about them. There was a James Bond exhibit which didn't interest me too much since I've never seen a Bond film (sorry not sorry!).

I walked back to the hostel solo after that for a bit of R&R while Melissa went to look at something called the Declaration of Independence. I'm not really sure what it is but it sounds like something that Nicholas Cage might want to steal some day.

For dinner, we started plugging things from The List into Google Maps just to see if there was anything within walking distance and the winner was Ted's Bulletin. I got breakfast for dinner and then a slice of cake that was really just an entire cake. It was the size of my face. Face cake. The restaurant was cute (but not cheap like Buzzfeed had suggested). They're famous for their homemade poptarts which seems like an oxymoron but man, was that cake good.

More exploring tomorrow and then it is time to head a little closer to home because we are going to Philadelphia!!! Woohoo!

TJ Travels

So, let me start off by saying that I did a thing... an Instagram thing... Yes, I finally caved to peer pressure and made an Instagram. Blame Whitney! She doesn't have time to Facebook message me but she does have the time to crop photos into little squares and upload them to social media and since I want to know what's going on in Israel, I needed to create an Instagram. I made my username thomson.was.here because if I ever do post anything, it will be photos of places I have been so there ya go.

We started off today with a lovely farewell breakfast with our homestay and then we drove to Monticello, home of Thomas Jefferson. We couldn't have picked a more perfect time to visit, apparently, because today was the anniversary of when Thomas Jefferson presented the Declaration of Independence to be reviewed and signed 239 years ago.

Monticello was gorgeous! Absolutely incredible. Also, Thomas Jefferson definitely learned and forgot more things in a lifetime than I will ever know. He designed the house himself after teaching himself to be an architect because why not? Even though we managed to score an earlier tour than we'd originally booked, we still had some time to explore the gardens before we went into the house. Photography isn't allowed inside the house but that was pretty amazing too. One room was this ridiculous shade of yellow that was apparently historically accurate (historians spent a lot of time looking at paint chips to figure that out and now Ralph Lauren sells paint called Monticello Yellow in honor of this).

I'm so artistic.

The best part of Monticello might have actually been their attempts at social media; they had pictures of Thomas Jefferson for kids to color and they were supposed to post these photos with #TJTravels. Well, I'm TJ and I travel, so this was pretty perfect. We sat down at the kids' station and started coloring. A security guard wasn't too pleased about this at first but once we explained that I, too, am TJ, he took a step back and realized that we're harmless -- idiots, maybe -- but totally harmless.

We took the scenic route from Monticello to Washington, DC, which is where we are spending the first few days of yet another unbooked week -- lots of time in the rolling slopes of Virginia.

We checked into our hostel (which is a thousand times better than the Econolodge in Atlanta... although a cardboard box is probably better than the Econolodge in Atlanta... being homeless might even be better than the Econolodge in Atlanta) and got to some exploring. We walked down to the Mall and worked on mapping out our next few days here while checking out the sights; the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and of course, the White House.

This wasn't even all of them!

My favorite part of DC was when I discovered how many Snapstickers there were! Practically a new one on every block. I got snapstickers that I didn't even understand and I'm sure there will be more to find tomorrow. My phone wasn't on for the first half of the outing either, so there will hopefully be many more to add to my collection! I was so excited that I pretty much annihilated my phone's battery as I walked around, taking continuous snaps just in case. (Mandy is very jealous, obviously, because we love snapstickers).

The Historic Walking Tour and the Raven Room

So this exists...

Just in case you didn't believe me when I said I was in Virginia, I have a picture of me with a GIANT Robert E. Lee statue to prove it.

On Thursday, Melissa and I went on a historic walking tour of downtown Charlottesville. I didn't learn much about Charlottesville, but I did learn that I could get sweaty in a whole bunch of places I didn't think would ever be an issue. I might have possibly gotten dumber on this walking tour... To illustrate, our guide (who managed to be even sweatier than I was, which is equal parts impressive and disgusting) was telling us about the house that had served as a hospital for wounded Confederate soldiers during the Civil War and when we asked him what year it had been built in, he said 1899. Because that's possible... He also talked a lot about how sad it would be if they took down all of the statues honoring the Confederacy... Yeah, mhm, so sad....................... I did learn that statues of Confederate soldiers always face south, so that's something, I guess.

The Raven Room - I didn't take this; see plexiglass comment.

Yesterday, we drove to the University of Virginia after rehearsal to see Thomas Jefferson's brainchild. Ok, one of his many brainchildren, but perhaps the best known after the Declaration of Independence and Louisiana. Did we go to see any of the Jeffersonian architecture? No. We went to see the mysterious Raven Room. Edgar Allan Poe (or Joe if you're me and think you're funny when you're not) attended UVA for one session (because we can't call them semesters) and a bunch of people -- The Raven Society -- decided to restore his room to period condition. It was neat, I guess, if you like staring at one room through a sheet of fingerprinty, smudged plexiglass for an inordinate amount of time. There is the obligatory taxidermy raven, because I'm sure that he definitely just had that thing lying around. *Rolls eyes*

Today was show day and tomorrow, it is on to the next town, or actually, the next vacation because we're unbooked again.

One thing I forgot to mention about Blenheim Vineyards -- they give you your wine glass with the tasting (nothing particularly special except that it says their name on the base). It, along with a very minor buzz, is your little souvenir for the afternoon BUT if you bring it back, your next wine tasting is free!!! Melissa and I both took our glasses against our better judgment (because seriously, what are we going to do with them) but I guess I know where we'll be headed this weekend if we have a rough show...

Blenheim Vineyards

Apparently Charlottesville, VA is Virginia wine country. I didn't know they made wine in Virginia. In my mind, wine comes from California and France (despite the fact that I've gone to wine tastings in South Africa and Mexico plus the Canadian fruit wine incident) but it also comes from Virginia apparently.

While there are lots of wineries and vineyards to choose from, we selected Blenheim Vineyards as our destination this afternoon, mainly because it is owned by Dave Matthews and that's pretty nifty.

We got to try five different types of wine at the vineyard; a viognier, a chardonnay, a rose, a merlot and a grenache. I like to pretend that I know what I'm doing at wine tastings but the truth is that I do not, I just like wine (and I'm generally rather indiscriminate about whether it is good or bad). The wine here was good but I think the view might have been even better. Overall, I felt very fancy.

Virginia is pretty.

 I also want to show off another marquee and the end of this post seems to be just as good a place as any!

The Best of the Rest!

So after Atlanta, I went to the land of no wifi -- Charlotte, NC. To be fair, I'm pretty sure that there is wireless internet in Charlotte, just not where I was so now you get a crash course on my last day in Atlanta and how I spent the rest of my week.

We started our last day in Atlanta with donuts (which I already blogged about) and after doing some business-y things, we went out to the Krog Street Market. It was pretty cute and I got a really awesome grilled cheese and some garlic parmesan fries, but nothing too special. The Krog Street Market also had The Little Tart Bakeshop which is on the list. I got a whole wheat chocolate chip cookie which probably would have been better if I'd eaten it right away, instead of letting it sit in Melissa's purse all afternoon and eating it as a late night snack, but still tasty!

Next we walked down the street to the Krog Street Tunnel. It's just a tunnel except for the fact that it's basically a living art museum. Every inch is graffiti. It was kind of a strange tourist destination, but really beautiful if you ask me (and I guess you sort of are since you're reading this blog). I tried to take a panoramic photo because I thought that would be really cool, but cars kept having the audacity to drive through my shot!

Post Krog-Street Tunnel, we headed over towards the Majestic Diner where we would be meeting my friend, Woodchuck Will, for a farewell dinner. The thing was, we were about four hours early for dinner, so we ended up walking to Piedmont Park which was gorgeous. And hot. Very hot. I was a sweaty girl (Melissa doesn’t sweat, she sparkles. She even has a shirt that says so, I on the other hand, sweat. A lot). Once we’d done a lap and basically exhausted ourselves, we headed back towards the Majestic, except we were still an hour early, so we walked to the Atlanta Cupcake Factory, which we’d read about as having delicious peach cupcakes. When we got there, they didn’t actually have any peach cupcakes, which was incredibly disappointing, but I did get a red velvet cupcake. Little Thomson would be very upset with big Thomson right now, because not only did I eat the icing, I thought it was the best part of the cupcake.

We loitered outside of the cupcake place for a while since we’d been walking all day and then went back to the diner. The Diner is from The List and it was yummy but nothing special. It was a diner, ya know? I got pancakes and I think it’s pretty hard to mess up those. We said goodbye to Will (for now, since we’ll be seeing him in two weeks) and went back to our hotel to indulge in a bottle of Red Truck Wine that we’d found.

The next morning, we said goodbye to Atlanta with some Waffle House for breakfast and a Cookout shake for lunch. I dropped Melissa off at the airport (not the Atlanta airport, but another airport in Atlanta because we later found out that she’d actually booked herself a private flight to Memphis!) and I drove on to Charlotte.

Gotta love the snap stickers

I mainly vedged out in Charlotte. I stayed with Whitney’s friend from school and made a new best friend in Carl, the one-eyed cat. He is seriously my best friend now. Leaving him was the hardest thing I have ever done! I did some sight-seeing around Charlotte, including walking the majority of the “Liberty Walk” which is like their equivalent of Boston’s Freedom Trail except that all of the historic buildings have been demolished. I also got a vegan cheesesteak and walked two miles in 95 degree weather to try a vegetarian restaurant. 

I visited Charlotte's "hipster neighborhood" NoDa, which was very disappointing EXCEPT for Amelie's French Bakery which comes from The List and which I would say is the first flat out "oh my goodness, you need to go there" hit that I've had in a while. The List has taken us to some really interesting places, but this one really was special. It's billed as a traditional French bakery, but I've been to France and can tell you that it is anything but; it's more like a French bakery meets American pop culture. I don't think my pictures really capture much since I was trying to be stealthy because everyone around me was already giving me weird looks from being sweaty. I think their little love lock bridge was cute, although if people seriously put locks there, I'm worried about their relationships. I got a blueberry cream cheese muffin and it was all sorts of goodness.

CARL

Overall in Charlotte, it was mainly me sitting on the couch with the kitten watching Netflix or sitting out by the pool and that is 100% fine with me.

Now I'm in Charlottesville, Virginia, prepping for another residency. Charlottesville is the biggest place I've worked so far and I'm almost overwhelmed by how much there is to do here! There will be lots to blog about for sure!