Eastern Market
Well, I'm lying here "resting." Staying home another day from work, because apparently this crud has decided to kick it into high gear and tack on a fever on top of the sniffling, coughing, wheezing blah-ness that is ... whatever illness I have. But it's not even 9:00 and already I'm bored. So I thought I'd finally get around to writing that post about Eastern Market. (And I'm reasonably doped up on medicine, so if there are a lot of typos, forgive me.)
As I mentioned in the "Capitol Hill Books" post, P and I went to this place called Eastern Market this weekend. A friend of mine from work has been encouraging me to go for a long time -- probably since I first moved here. I didn't realize that it's on the Orange line of the Metro, which makes it a snap to get to! But I'll start at the beginning ...
We headed into the city with a few objectives. I needed to take a photo in front of the Capitol to include in my Christmas cards, so we headed there first. We got a few good ones and many silly (not-so-good) ones. It was a gorgeous day. Really, I don't think the weather could have been more perfect. It was that same cool, but not cold, that it's been for a while here. And the sun was out ... absolutely loverly.
From the Capitol, we walked over toward Eastern Market -- which is several blocks, but a pleasant walk on a day like that. We wandered aimlessly (well, not entirely without aim) for a while, not completely sure where the market was since we'd never been before and eventually spotted the tops of the white vendor tents.
It reminded me a lot of Christmas on the River, which is a HUGE annual event in Demopolis that involves an outdoor market setup on a Saturday in December. There were all different kinds of vendors outside selling their wares: jewelry, scarves, pottery, fine china, and photography and other artwork. There were two buildings that housed even more vendors. One was like an indoor extension of those setup outside. The other was a large, warehouse-type space that was the central location for all the food: fresh produce, baked goods, homemade pasta, and fresh cuts of meat. As my friend from work suggested, it would be ideal to head out to Eastern Market first thing in the morning on Saturday, pick up the fresh ingredients and make dinner later that day.
We also grabbed a couple sandwiches from this tiny Italian deli/grocery ... I think it was called Prego. It was right across the street from the market. Anyway -- very, very yummy!
After we wrapped up browsing through the market, we headed to the
used book store that was just across the street from the backside of the
market area. Spent some time there, picked up a few books, and
then headed out to find the Metro and make our way home.
