RVA

    

   

   

    

This past weekend, Evin and I took a little vacation to Richmond to visit friends.  My roommate in college planned a surprise for her boyfriend's birthday where college friends would all show up unannounced for a fun reunion.  So, we made a weekend out of it, and Evin made it special!  We stayed at The Jefferson Hotel, where we were treated like royalty.  We ate dinner with my roommate and her boyfriend Friday night at a restaurant with a great view of the water, and then headed back to the house where everyone else arrived and fun times ensued.  Saturday morning, Evin and I got up early and headed to the Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens.  You could spend days in that place!  It was enormous and beautiful.  As you can see, that's where my camera got the most exercise :) We ate lunch in the tea room there and then went to hang out with our friends again, eventually ending up at a pub (called Penny Lane) where they were playing all Beatles songs and I could get Strongbow on tap.  It's no Bulmers, but it's still tasty :)  That night we had hot dogs for dinner (ha) and did a good bit of walking (which I don't mind...walking is free and it's good for us).  Sunday morning we had reservations for the Jefferson's Champagne brunch, which was SO deluxe and wonderful.  It's where I first tried eggs Jefferson, which I put in my TILT post yesterday, and I could already go for another serving or two!  Afterwards we went to the Virginia Science Museum, which of course is geared mostly toward kids (I'm a kid though so) and watched an IMAX presentation of "Born To Be Wild" (so cute I practically cried the entire time...orphaned baby elephants and orangutans being cared for by humans and released back into the wild).  By that point we were tired from an eventful weekend and headed home.
It was my first real visit to Richmond (I played softball in the outskirts when I was younger and think I visited the Capital (?) in like elementary school) and I think it's safe to say that, while I'd visit again, I much prefer the open spaces of the countryside.  No city for me I don't think :)