My long-time friend, Nina, moved across the country to Fredericksburg, Virginia with her husband more than two years ago. Since then, I had promised her that one day I would visit, and I finally had the chance to do so. The last time I traveled on a plane was when I was around 7-8 years old, and I had visited my aunt who lived in Dallas, Texas. I didn’t remember a single thing about that plane trip, so the experience of riding on a plane was basically new to me. Mark willingly came with me, which was a relief because I would have been too scared to go alone. Our plane tickets included an overnight flight with a stop at Boston, Massachusetts and an arrival in Richmond, Virginia.
Day 0.5 (Sunday Night-Monday Morning, a.k.a. The Overnight Flight)
The start of our trip was very hopeful. We got through security surprisingly quickly, and that was the thing that I was most stressed about. I spent seven dollars on two granola bars because I thought I would need snacks (note to self: bring your own snacks!)
Then, after a bit of a delay, we were on the plane to fly across the country. I queued up 13 Going On 30 to watch on my personal seat screen, but stopped after 15 minutes to try to go to sleep. I said to Mark, “If you need me, just tap on my shoulder”. As soon as I finished that sentence, we experienced some intense turbulence. I clenched my arm rests and held on for dear life, and luckily, it was over within a couple minutes. The rest of the plane ride was pretty bumpy, which meant that neither of us got any sleep. I spent the next four hours switching through the live TV channels, too bored and too anxious to sleep or watch a movie.
We arrived in Boston at five in the morning. The temperature was 20 degrees Fahrenheit, which easily won the award for the coldest I’ve ever experienced. We were both very hungry and very delirious. We took a quick seat at our gate to come up with a plan for getting food.
We saw that the airport had a few Burger Kings, and after I mentioned that I’ve never had Burger King breakfast before, we decided to get food there. We didn’t know that the Burger King in our terminal was actually outside, and we ended up walking all the way across the terminal. We were NOT going to brace the below freezing temperature for some Burger King breakfast. There was another Burger King in a nearby terminal, so we made our way there, only to be greeted with a gate over the counter. It didn’t open until 10am! Desperate for food, we walked back to our terminal and got Dunkin’ Donuts instead. After eating our food (and messily, on Mark’s part), burrowing ourselves in blankets, and moving our seats away from the freezing windows, it was finally time to leave Boston and get on another plane for a less-than-two-hour-flight to Richmond.
Day 1 (Monday afternoon, a.k.a. The Introduction to Virginia)
Nina picked us up from the airport, and we made our journey to her house in Fredericksburg. We were immediately greeted by Nina’s dog, who is the cutest, kookiest little fluff ball I’ve ever met.
Before we were going to do anything, I made sure that I took a shower first because I was covered in plane/airport germs. Nina started making chili, which was meant to be ready by the time her husband, Ben, came home. We all got ready, and Nina took us to an Italian deli called Basilico. We had a lovely late lunch that certainly hit the spot, and our friend Josh, who had also moved to Virginia and, coincidentally, in the same town as Nina, met up with us there. While Josh went to his house to pick up various video game consoles, Nina took us to a local coffee shop, and then we spent the rest of the night eating chili (Nina still needs to email me her improvised recipe) and playing Mario Party on the Nintendo Switch (my right arm received a killer workout, and was pretty sore the next day).
Day 2 (Tuesday, a.k.a. What’s a Belk?)
The sleep you get after not getting any sleep the night before is the best, in my humble opinion. We were ready to start our first full day in Virginia with the help of delicious brunch from a hipster joint called Mercantile, located in historic downtown Fredericksburg.
We visited a nearby antique store after our meal and had some good laughs. There were plenty of creepy dolls, civil war memorabilia, and old pottery. I found a wonderful postcard in the “humor” section and was about to buy it until Mark pointed out the $5 tag written in the corner.
We had to leave the antique store because Nina had an appointment to get her car tires replaced. We went to Costco, and this particular Costco was attached to a secret indoor mall, and the secret indoor mall was attached to a giant store called Belk. Even Nina didn’t know what Belk was. We each made our guesses of what it was (I said a department store, Mark said a home goods store like a Crate and Barrel, Nina said a store like Ikea) and made it our plan to walk in after dropping off the car. I was more on the money; Belk turned out to be more like a Kohl’s, not exactly a department store, but more focused on clothing. There were even signs for “Belk bucks” that looked exactly like “Kohl’s cash”, so I guess Belk is just the East Coast Kohl’s. I was hoping that none of us had guessed correctly, and it was actually something completely random and unexpected. We left Belk and walked around the mall, and there was an outside shopping center also attached to it (this mall was the mall that keeps on giving). We spent the rest of our time waiting for the car by browsing around in a bookstore that was the equivalent to our Barnes & Noble.
It was getting late (time flew by SO quickly the entire trip), and in true California fashion, it was going to be a Taco Tuesday night for dinner. Nina took us to Wegmans, and OH, was that an experience! You know how people get excited about being at Disneyland? Well, Wegmans was MY Disneyland. For those of you who are unaware, I work at a natural grocery store, and you could fit 2 Frazier Farms inside Wegmans (maybe 3 if you’re generous). I was amazed by every aisle and department we went through. There was a full seafood bar, like actual high-end restaurant level seafood bar, right in the middle of the meat department. There was an amazing loose-leaf tea section, and the tea was really inexpensive (I ended up getting some yuzu sencha tea). It took us double the amount of time it would have taken to buy our taco ingredients because we were having so much fun exploring the store. Then, we settled back at the household. Ben came home from work, and he and Nina cooked all the taco fixings together. Josh came over, we all happily ate our tacos (even though we chose corn tortillas, and they all just crumbled onto our plates), and played a board game this time. It was Would You Rather, and there were a lot of laughs.
Day 3 (Wednesday, a.k.a. The Dog Mall)
I got maybe 2 hours of sleep Tuesday night because I had some majorly painful period cramps (just my luck, eh?). Mark and I were by ourselves for Wednesday morning. Nina was receiving a certificate for staying committed to marriage with Ben after he recently reenlisted with the Marine Corps, and she wouldn’t be back until the afternoon. So, we ate cereal, gave the dog lots of pets and snuggles, and watched random Youtube videos (most of them were videos I liked in high school, which included an education on the theories behind Salad Fingers), the first episode of Tidying Up With Marie Kondo, and one of my favorite episodes of Parks and Recreation. Then, Nina was home, and she informed us that Ben got the rest of the day off from work and that he really wanted pizza. So, we decided on Benny Vitali’s, and we had New York style (they call it “the Virginia slice” there) slices bigger than my head! As for festivities for the rest of our day, Nina wanted to take us to the “dog mall” in Richmond, which was an hour south. I was expecting a whole mall dedicated to dogs, complete with dog boutiques and other stores, dog parks everywhere, and of course, DOGS everywhere. It was actually just a regular outdoor mall for people that was dog friendly. And because it was so cold (about 35 degrees), there was hardly anyone shopping, and just a few dogs playing at one of the dog park areas. Since we did drive an hour to get there, we explored a little bit. We went into a dog boutique and picked out a dollar chicken foot (that dog is OBSESSED with chicken) to give to her as a treat later that night (she, of course, excitedly devoured it). On the way back home, Ben took us down Monument Avenue, which featured many civil war general statues and beautiful old brick townhomes. It was great to see some architecture that isn’t around on the West Coast. We arrived back at home a little later than we had wanted, so Josh didn’t come over that night. But after eating some very delicious chicken soup (Mark’s favorite meal of the trip), Ben went to bed, and the three of us watched the first episode of my favorite show, The Haunting of Hill House. And then everybody went to bed for the night.
Day 4 (Thursday, a.k.a. Protests and A Burning Trashcan)
Our last full day on the East Coast was dedicated to all-day sight-seeing and other touristy activities in Washington, DC. We got up early, since it was an hour drive to the metro station and about a half hour on the metro to get into DC. All bundled up with gloves, beanies, and extra snow jackets (the high of the day was forecasted to be 30 degrees), we made our way to the Franconia station. My favorite inside joke of the trip occurred on this day in the car. Nina had been asking me what music to play in the car, and this time, she had misunderstood me. I asked her to play a new Killers song, which was called “The Man”. She has Apple Carplay, and she said, “Siri, can you play ‘Tomato’ by The Killers?” This is obviously not a real song, but Siri did her best and played a song. I was laughing so hard that I didn’t get to see what song she did choose to play. We parked the car and got ready to take the metro. It was 27 degrees outside, and it stayed that way until mid-afternoon. There weren’t that many options of things to do because of the unfortunately timed government shutdown, which meant that the national parks and free museums were closed indefinitely. I love museums, so we decided to go to a cheaper one that was only $8 for admittance. This museum was the National Museum of Women in the Arts, and it was beautiful (the East Coast knows how to create really extravagant museums).
During this time of year, the museum featured an exhibition on Rodarte and her fashion designs. The dresses were, of course, beautiful, and the mannequins were stylishly judging us common folk.
The rest of the museum had some wonderful art pieces from many different female artists around the world. My favorite piece was a sculpture of a pregnant woman. She just looks so happy with her round belly!
There was also this piece, which could haunt your dreams if you stare too closely.
After the museum, we were READY for some food. And what place did we absolutely need to go to while we were on the East Coast? Potbellys, of course! This particular location was a little crowded, but very small for the amount of people that were in there. We ate our sandwiches, pausing for brief moments to breathe and exclaim, “MMMM so good”. We sat at the counter facing the window to the street. What we saw surprised us all (and will surprise you too! Keep reading!). The outside trashcan was ON FIRE! How???? And why wasn’t anyone else worried about it? By the time we left, the plastic was still burning, but wasn’t in flames anymore. I guess East Coasters don’t care about burning trashcans. If that happened in California, it would start a giant wildfire. (Sorry, I didn’t snap any pictures of the trashcan).
Next on the DC itinerary was some monument viewing. On the way to the Washington and Lincoln Memorials, we stopped to check out the White House, but only the back of it was visible from where we were. Since we were right in the middle of the government shutdown (14 days in, to be exact), we were physically in the middle of a full-on American protest. I had seen a protest one day in Los Angeles, but it wasn’t even on the same level as this protest. There were hundreds of people, maybe even thousands, marching to the White House, complete with several camera crews and well-known politicians (but unknown to me because I don’t know much about politics, oops).
It was a truly historical event, and I never imagined that I would be able to watch it happen in person.
Another apparently ordinary East Coast thing that I was weirdly excited about seeing? Steam coming out of a manhole.
Now it was memorial time. Seeing these things in person is a lot different from seeing them on TV or in a movie. You know how people are always saying that Lincoln is GIANT in the memorial? Well, it’s true.
We also saw the Vietnam Veteran memorial. There were lots of leaves everywhere because not only was it super windy, but the groundskeepers haven’t been around to clean up during the shutdown.
Our last DC activity was a quick trip to a gift shop called Chocolate Moose, and this place was very Sydney approved. Super quirky. I bought some caramels for my mom and I and a cute little coin purse that reads, “I’m having an OUT OF MONEY experience!” (I love puns).
When we hopped back on the metro, we checked the traffic back home, and it was a two-hour drive. We were also really hungry (it was dinner time). Our two choices were to (1), eat somewhere before heading back to let traffic die down a little, or (2), eat once we get home. Nina mentioned that there was a Nando’s in Alexandria (a town in Virginia in between DC and our metro station). I immediately screamed “YES!” because I thought Nando’s was only in the UK or Australia, and after seeing all of the cheeky Nando’s memes, it was a must-go.
Traffic did die down by the time we finished our dinner. Josh came over again to see us on our last night, and again we all played video games (the classic Josh hangouts always include video games).
Day 5 (Friday, a.k.a. Going Back to Cali)
The morning consisted of packing, more cereal eating, and lots of goodbye pets to the dog. Overall, I didn’t get that much sleep during the week, so I dozed off for most of the car ride to the Richmond airport. We went through security even quicker than San Diego. After the quick flight to Boston, we paid a visit to a gift shop to buy some stickers for myself and my mom, as well as some salt water taffy for her. I told her I would get her something from Boston, since she loves the Patriots, but settled on the taffy because all things Patriots-related were way too expensive for me. I had started to get a bad headache, probably from being sleep deprived and being at the airport, so I was very relieved when it was time to get on the plane. This ride was so much smoother, and I enjoyed being able to see the sunset through my window.
We left the East Coast right before the winter storm came through, but I was able to see some snow from up above.
We arrived back in good ol’ San Diego after six hours on the plane. It was around 60 degrees (ohhhhh yeah). When people asked me how my trip was, I said, “Good, but COLD!!!”
Trip highlights: finally getting to meet my fluffy dog friend, eating so much good food, being amazed by Wegmans, and spending time with my best friend, Nina.
10/10 would visit again
10/10 would go with you again, but not on an overnight flight and maybe not during winter.
10/10 would read this post again, and I probably will.
10/10 would eat that freaking soup again, I tell ya.
11/10 you’re cute, and this one goes to eleven!
P.S. I didn’t even realize you slept much on the way to the airport 🙂