Christmas Vacation and Assal Market in Vienna

Every Sunday after our morning walk in the neighborhood we take a short ride to Vienna. It’s just become a routine. Being the holiday season we are also on the look our for Christmas decorations. Before we knew it we passed by an interesting display and needed to turn the corner and go around the block to check it out again. It was a Chevy Chase Christmas Vacation scene - the RV and Randy Quaid, the bottom of a chair showing the electrocuted cat, and Chevy Chase. It made us laugh. When we turned the corner we noticed a place called Assal Market. So I looked it up to see what it was about. It’s an Iranian grocery. So we parked the car and stepped in to see if there was anything different about this place compared to Yas down the street. It was a bigger market, but had pretty much the same things. My husband got some bread and sour cherry jelly, but nothing else was appealing. There is another market in Rockville, Maryland that we haven’t been to since the pandemic. There is a very large Persian community in our area and a lot more restaurants. It’s nice to be able to visit them all and stock up on some things that you can’t get in the regular grocery. But for my husband it reminds him of home - which is the best reason to stop in. 

Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in Vienna

I saw a story in the Washington Post the other day about Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in Vienna. It’s quite close to our northern Virginia home, so we decided to drive out that way for a morning walk. The US Botanical Gardens in DC are my favorite gardens. We walked through them many times over the thirteen years we lived on Capitol Hill. The gardens opened at ten o’clock and there were already quite a few cars in the parking lot. It costs $3.00 for admission. So we got a map and started out heading to our left, traversed both the paved and hiking trails, and passed by some very pretty venues. Unfortunately we just missed the beauty of spring. There were still some hints of it - almost gone tulips and a few flowering trees. Otherwise it was pretty much in between the spring to summer seasons. The walk itself was nice and the water features and sculpture were lovely. It felt a bit too “artificial” for our liking, but it was worth the visit. We missed a whole section because we veered off on an alternate path on the way back without knowing where we would end up. It’s a nice option for a variety of occasions. There is an atrium for special events and I’m sure a lot of educational opportunities for the kids. We may return sometime as I’m sure it takes on very different looks throughout the seasons. It was a nice change of pace.  

Plaka Grill, Maggios's & Skorpios, or Vaso's Kitchen?

We usually have a routine, but today we wanted to change it up a bit. Last week we needed to go to Vienna, Virginia and tried a new restaurant for lunch and quite liked it. So I went home and looked up the top ten restaurants in Vienna, thinking we might give them a try for either lunch on Friday, or dinner on Sunday evening. Since we both like Greek, and two of the most mentioned Greek places were Maggio's & Skorpios and Plaka, we headed out today to try one of them. We first stopped at Plaka.  As soon as we stepped in the door, we knew we wouldn't like it because it was an order at the counter type place. That reminds me of McDonald's - which is fine for travel - but not for this day or time. So we left and drove to Maggio's. It looked a bit more promising, but as soon as we walked through the front door there, we were met with the same environment - order at the counter. Being frustrated by that twice, we decided to drive back to one of our favorite routine spots in Alexandria to Vaso's Kitchen - formerly in the Dixie Pig BBQ establishment. It's never a bad idea. It's a great sit down typical Greek place with enough food to bring home for dinner tonight. So much for a change in routine. But it was a nice ride to Vienna.