The REAL reason we went to D.C.

As you all may know from our last post, Chelsea and I were in Washington D.C. last weekend for the Teach for America 20th anniversary summit. As you also may know, we both really enjoy food, which was the biggest selling point when deciding whether or not to attend the summit... that and our school/TFA paid for it!! Our culinary adventures began in Indianapolis and their International airport.

We ate some really good burgers and I bought Chel and I some assorted chocolates from a chocolate shop nearby. The Indianapolis airport is really nice and the Delta terminal has good burgers. Our plane arrived at Reagan National at 2:00 p.m. We took a cab to our hotel, The Henley Park Hotel. The hotel was "very old, but charming", said Chelsea Barnes when asked for her comments about the hotel. We put our bags down, checked into the TFA Summit (the convention center was 3 minutes away from our hotel!!!) and went off to Matchbox D.C. You may remember Matchbox D.C. from our post about D.C. this summer. They have great pizza and luckily for us it was about 4 pm and we didn't have to wait in line. After dinner, we went back to the hotel and then to our evening sessions at the summit.

IDEA, the school we work for, provided us with money to attend the summit on one condition... that we help them recruit other teachers. We were expected to collect 15 contacts by the end of the summit (Chelsea collected 2, I collected 1). We also had to assist them in their booth at the job fair on Saturday that they had going on. Luckily, it was only for 30 minutes and we did an excellent job on selling IDEA.

Lunch on Saturday was supposed to include Chelsea, Miles, and myself. Miles bailed on us because "he forgot", so it was Chelsea and I. I was a terrible boyfriend on Saturday and miscalculated the distance between the convention center and Big Ben's Chili Bowl, D.C.'s number 1 place for Chili, http://www.benschilibowl.com/ordereze/default.aspx. It took us 20 minutes to get there, it was windy, and Chelsea was hungry. We finally arrived at Big Ben's... only to find out it is "cash only". (Chelsea would like to add that her dad's old adage about cash being a necessity when traveling was proved true on many occasions throughout the weekend. We have (again) learned our lesson.) Luckily, they have a restaurant next door named "Ben's Next Door", http://www.bensnextdoor.com/ordereze, (it's owned by the same people!) Ben's Next door had great wings! Chelsea ordered a delicious breakfast with a lot of bacon and I ordered Chicken and Waffles, a southern delicacy that I've never had in Texas.

We walked back happily to the convention center and missed our afternoon sessions (darn!). I was able to meet with the principal from the KIPP Colorado Schools and got some good news and bad news. The bad news was that the Data position was already taken. The good news is that he was looking for 5th grade math teachers and would like me to teach a model lesson to some of KIPP's students. I am still debating on whether or not to teach next year, but it's nice to know that there are options. I also applied to a position at CSU working with low-income high school students, advising them and their families on the college admissions process. Both jobs would interest me very much.

Saturday night we were both entertained and inspired by the closing session of the TFA summit. That night, Chelsea's cough (probably because of the windy walk to Ben's) was a little bad so we stayed in. We were supposed to go to a party hosted by IDEA but we opted for staying in and ordering room service burgers... best decision ever! We also watched "The Notebook". Side Note: We wanted to go to another Pizza place named, "We, The Pizza". It's owned and operated by Spike Mendelsohn, a Top Chef contestant. Long story short, Erin was at We the Pizza Saturday night AND SAW MICHELLE OBAMA!!!

Sunday we met up with Erin for Brunch at Ted's Bulletin. Its decor and theme is from the 30's and 40's, complete with a soda jerk. The menu is amazing. We waited for 2 hours and Chelsea was fading on us. Her antibiotics make her even more delightful to be around when she is on an empty stomach (Chelsea asked me to write this line in). Luckily, the hostess was nice enough to ask us if we were ok and I said "My girlfriend is sick, I think she's throwing up in the bathroom. She's really hungry. Could you help us get something small?" She got us a homemade pop tart that held Chel over (and she did not throw up- but learned her lesson about taking meds on an empty stomach). She ate a sloppy joe that was great. Erin had a chicken salad sandwich and I had a burrito.

Sunday night we celebrated Valentine's Day and Acqua Al 2. It was an Italian restaurant close to the Capitol in the Eastern Market neighborhood. Delicious is an understatement for their food. Our appetizer was Gnocchi with Gorgonzola Cream Sauce. We liked it so much that we are making it tonight!! For our entree we had filet mignon. Chelsea's was over a salad, mine was covered in blueberry sauce. For dessert we had a delicious cheese cake.

Our journey ended Monday. We were back in the RGV. Luckily, our students tested so Chel and I taught for only 2 days. My students did ok, they took an official State Assessment from 2009 to see how they would fare if they took their state test today. They did pretty well. (Side note from Chelsea- they did very well.)

We hope you enjoyed our post. We bought a griddle!! We will post about our breakfast today and the Gnocchi, hopefully later on tonight. We love you all!