Goodbye, Van Ness!

I’ve been in our new apartment for two months now, so I suppose it’s time to write a Goodbye, Van Ness blog post.

The apartment in Van Ness was my first big-kid apartment, and I moved there in January 2009, 9 days before Obama moved into HIS new home, and 3 days before I started my new job at ACEEE. I had spent the past six months living at home in Skippack, and while I loved the time with my mom, I was READY to be on my own.

I originally lived with two lovely ladies -- Jessica G. and Becky W., although Becky moved away in August, and was replaced by June R. I was in a room off of the living room which used to be the dining room, and which had a fake wall. It was a large room, with lovely big windows, but it was closetless. The apartment in general was huge, and particularly I loved the built-in bookshelves in the living room (look at how big that room is! you can do a cartwheel in it!).

Van Ness was also great for its proximity to a number of things I love. These include:

1. The people who were living in The Consulate. I was really lucky to find a great group of friends in Seth, Stacy, Arielle, and Alexa, (thanks to Rachel H!), and it was wonderful being a few blocks away for LOST watching and impromptu snowmageddon excursions. Of course, 3 out of the four of them are moving away, some all the way to LA!, but I will definitely miss being close to them.

2. Giant. I am a self-professed fan of supermarkets, and the Van Ness Giant is for sure the most “suburban” (I mean that as a compliment!) supermarket that I’ve experienced in NW DC. Of course, there are more exciting supermarkets (Whole Foods and Trader Joes), but for reasonably priced food AND well-stocked shelves (unlike some markets coughSovietSafewaycough), you can’t beat Van Ness Giant. And it was on my walk home every day.

3. The Zoo. As you know, I love volunteering in the Amazonia exhibit at the National Zoo, but I love it just a touch less when I have to trek there from my new apartment and the L2 is not coming. It was a much shorter (downhill!) walk in the morning at my old place. Plus, I passed the lovely restaurants and shops of Cleveland Park each way!

4. Alli G., favorite sister and sometimes doppleganger. Well, at least while she was still living at American University. Now that she’s graduated and moved off to FarFarAway (aka Takoma Park), this isn’t an advantage of Van Ness anymore, but at the time it was lovely to live one Metro stop or a short bus ride down Albemarle away from her.

5. Politics and Prose. Even before moving to DC, I heard about the wonderfulness of Politics & Prose from my Dad, who once purchased a biography of George Washington for me there. It’s this cute bookstore/coffeeshop about half a mile north of Albemarle Apartments on Connecticut Ave, and in addition to being a wonderfully well-curated independent bookstore, it's the site of daily author talks. While living there I got to hear a lot of great authors speak, although my favorites were definitely Taylor Branch (who recently wrote The Clinton Tapes, and who is famous for his history of MLK) and Walter Isaacson (who wrote great biographies of two of my favorite historical characters -- Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein).

The best part of Politics and Prose, though, is the abundance of sale books downstairs: needless to say, I spent a lot of my salary there. They're actually selling the store, and if I were 20 years older and a few hundred thousand dollars richer, I'd want to run it in a heartbeat -- what a wonderful place!

So that's the story of my first apartment. Goodbye, Van Ness -- you were a wonderful location for my first apartment and site of many glorious guacamole-related moments: