Is DC our only hope (for cheap hotels)?
Thursday, June 19, 2008 | |For the post
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So, it looks like I'll be in DC over a couple of days in July for work.
Well, mainly I'll be at Fabulous Reagan National Airport. Apparently, that's where the cheeeeep hotels are. I can't tell if that means the group I work for is po' now.
But National is close to DC, right? Shouldn't be an awful cab ride into the city... should it?
Anyway, of course work meetings tend to be scheduled on days that are the least fun for actually going out at night.
I asked TJ and Jimbo if anything at all fun happens at the bars or whatnot on the nights I was staying there. The short answer was, respectively, "If you'd read my blog you know I don't drink, you lush," and "No." (I paraphrase)
So I just now tacked on a Saturday night before hand for myself (on my own dime, natch).
And, geez, the hotel prices in DC are much, much, MUCH cheaper than New York or Boston. I mean I got this one (it seems to look pretty ok on Trip Advisor) in DuPont on a Saturday night for $120, including taxes.
I'm pretty fucking shocked. I just assumed it would be as outrageous as the rest of the country, what with a shitty dollar and massive invasions by Euro-wielding Neo-Vikings and newly uppity Canadians with their better value currency and wanting to buy things cheap. Bastards.
I mean it's not like *I* ever went to Canada when *we* had the strong dollar and luxuriated in nice things for little money.
But I digress...
So, at least it seems that DC is a potentially doable visiting place - at least budget-wise.
And considering airfares these days - for instance, half-a-thousand is *the* cheapest I can find for Boston to SF for the next 4 months - I think I'm gonna have to make do with slight extensions of work trips and quick 3-day weekends in Provincetown.
(Admittedly, as rarely as I go there, the easy access to Ptown is the one bright spot of living in Boston.)
Anyways, DC in July... any night time suggestions?
Well, mainly I'll be at Fabulous Reagan National Airport. Apparently, that's where the cheeeeep hotels are. I can't tell if that means the group I work for is po' now.
But National is close to DC, right? Shouldn't be an awful cab ride into the city... should it?
Anyway, of course work meetings tend to be scheduled on days that are the least fun for actually going out at night.
I asked TJ and Jimbo if anything at all fun happens at the bars or whatnot on the nights I was staying there. The short answer was, respectively, "If you'd read my blog you know I don't drink, you lush," and "No." (I paraphrase)
So I just now tacked on a Saturday night before hand for myself (on my own dime, natch).
And, geez, the hotel prices in DC are much, much, MUCH cheaper than New York or Boston. I mean I got this one (it seems to look pretty ok on Trip Advisor) in DuPont on a Saturday night for $120, including taxes.
I'm pretty fucking shocked. I just assumed it would be as outrageous as the rest of the country, what with a shitty dollar and massive invasions by Euro-wielding Neo-Vikings and newly uppity Canadians with their better value currency and wanting to buy things cheap. Bastards.
I mean it's not like *I* ever went to Canada when *we* had the strong dollar and luxuriated in nice things for little money.
But I digress...
So, at least it seems that DC is a potentially doable visiting place - at least budget-wise.
And considering airfares these days - for instance, half-a-thousand is *the* cheapest I can find for Boston to SF for the next 4 months - I think I'm gonna have to make do with slight extensions of work trips and quick 3-day weekends in Provincetown.
(Admittedly, as rarely as I go there, the easy access to Ptown is the one bright spot of living in Boston.)
Anyways, DC in July... any night time suggestions?
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I think that Metro will zip you right into Washington from the Virginia side with no problem. And some of the hotels are even walkable...right across the bridges. Happy travels! The last time I was in Washington in the summertime, I thought I was going to die. ....but you're much tougher than I am.
Reagan/National is just across the Potomac from the Jefferson Memorial--Lewis has it right about the Metro. Last time I was in DC I got taken to a delightful male strip bar somewhere in a run-down industrial area behind the Kennedy Center area. Great energy, really nice guys, the strippers were free of attitude and a lot of fun. Some were also available for the night for a fee, other just stripped on the bar for the joy of being ogled and touched and joked with.
You could also get in touch with Ted (the Neighbors Will Hear) who lives in the suburbs, has a massage table and a killer sense of humor.
The Metro will take you into DC proper no problem.
And as for night life - just go to the Eagle and get it over with. You know you're going to end up there anyway, half-naked, snogging with some muscle-puppy anyway. :)
That State Plaza Hotel is in Foggy Bottom, not "DuPont." (And it's "Dupont" anyway :-))
Most of the National Airport hotels are next door in Crystal City and Pentagon City which are metro-accessible...until midnight during the week and 2am on the weekend.
The strip bars mentioned by Will are just about all gone now. The Washington Nationals stadium now sits where the strip bars, baths, slurp-a-ramas and other nasty places used to be. The city has also been loathe to find other locales for these establishments mostly for NIMBY reasons.
Yup, you're right on a somewhat convenient Metrorail line, and the cab back isn't bad either.
TJ doesn't go out much...he thinks The Glory Hole is still open. I'll show you some good times.
It's been a long time, but Dupont Circle and a strip along 17th Street near the circle. If the Dupont Plaza Hotel is still there, it's probalby still nice and right in the middle of the Dupont Circle area. Go down P Street, which is one of the streets that feeds into the circle, toward Georgetown and there, not far, is the P Street Beach which was, in the 1960s and 1970s, a gay cruising and sunning spot. There was a good bar on Wisconsin Ave in Georgetown, can't remember the name, but I imagine Georgetown is gay, gay, gay. But the strip along 17th Street was very interesting with bars and clubs, only 10 years ago. (No snarky comments about my age, pls.)
Georgetown isn't very gay anymore. It gentrified itself into a national chain-store hell surrounded by millionaires in once-decrepit, now renovated row houses.
The 17th Street strip is still okay, and most of the new places have opened further east, but that area can be dicey if you don't know your way around.
Sorry to hear about Georgetown. Also remember that Capitol Hill was up and coming about 10 years ago with a growing gay population; wonder if that's still true. It was also dicey up there in places. I lived in Adams-Morgan, great diverse area not particularly gay when I lived there but then, neither was I.
Atari, If you like painting, don't miss the Phillips gallery near the White HOuse. It's a gem.
Check out the Jury's Hotel. It's right on the Circle...Dupont Circle, that is.
Dude, you are SO a new yorker!! EVERY city has cheaper hotels than NYC does!
Don't worry, I'll get you to meet all the CRAZY swimmers.