My trip to Birmingham, Nashville, Baltimore and D.C.!

I have not posted a lot the past couple of weeks because I took some time off an visited my family. I first flew to Birmingham, Alabama to help my talented brother, Nick, move to Nashville. He lived in Birmingham 4 years and took me to some cool coffee shops, restaurants, and bars (all of his favorite things). I had the most delicious scone and cup of chai ever at Urban Standard.

We walked about 2.5 miles from his apartment to an awesome public green space called Railroad Park. They park was created in an urban part of the city using green materials. They created seating and walls with piles of rocks contained by steel wire. It was so cool. We then packed a truck and drove to Nashville.

An unknown street artist has been painted the phrase, “You are beautiful” on many structures throughout the city.

I then flew from Nashville to Baltimore because his youngest sister, Erin, was graduating high school. We stopped at one of my favorite restaurants, a Korean bbq place called the Honey Pig. Everything is served with salad and a ton of small plates, which included one of my favorites, kimchi. The meat is cooked on a grill at your table.

We met my old college roommate, Jen, in Silver Spring, Maryland. We had dinner at Eggspectation then got dessert at Cakelove. I had a slice of red velvet cake and Jen had a “crunchy feet.” This is a little pound cake baked in brioche pan with a dallop of buttercream frosting on top. The cake has a hint of pepper and citrus.

Kevin’s family had a graduation party for Erin in a park. Emily and I hung light green paper pom poms to the shelter and tied pink, white, green and brown balloons to the tables. Kevin’s parents ordered the cutest Hello Kitty cake I’ve ever seen! It was actually a bunch of square cupcakes that were frosted as a single cake. They were light and fluffy and I kept eating them the entire weekend!

We put containers of bubbles at every table. Kevin and Caleb, Emily’s boyfriend, blew bubbles. They were like kids again!

Our last night in town we went with Emily and Caleb to D.C. to Sticky Rice, a great sushi restaurant in D.C. It was the first sushi place I’ve been to that had a bottle of sriracha sauce on table. It was also the first sushi restaurant I’ve been to that had tater tots on the menu! They were served with a white sauce and perfect with a little sriracha.

{All the photos were taken with the iPhone Camera+ app}