In any city where there are people in suits roaming the streets, you can feel a collective exhale at 5 PM. Everyone finally gets to loosen their collar and head home, or, as I soon discovered was very common in DC, to the local bar or restaurant for happy hour drinks.
It was my first evening in DC, after a red eye flight and a day exploring the city on foot. So by 5:30pm, I was definitely exhausted and in need of a beer. I met up with Leslie at her office and we walked over to a place called Recessions. The bar is between Dupont Circle and Farragut (to the best of my DC geography knowledge), perfectly positioned to attract many young employees from the nearby think-tanks and policy agencies. And as I expected, the bar filled up mostly with 21-26 year olds. The atmosphere felt more like a lounge in a college dorm than that of an underground urban bar.
I met Leslie's friends Mari and Anna there. What was awkward was that Leslie and I sat at our own table, and a dozen or so of Mari's friends filled in the tables next to us. We had a strong feeling that this was the group we were invited to join, but without Mari there to introduce us, it was just Leslie and I enjoying our drinks.
Also, I was able to cross another item off my list: Take a picture wearing the craziest hat I could find. Unfortunately, there was hardly anyone wearing a hat that I could find, let alone a crazy hat, so I settled for the first moderately cool-looking hat I could find:
The hat guy had asked us for a quarter so he could use the jukebox. He and the friend with him were from California. And at the time, I was sitting with Anna and her friends, Peter (?) and Ashley, also from California. Apparently DC has undergone a west coast invasion?