Cydney Cappello

As my first spring in D.C. I had to go out to the Tidal Basin to check out the cherry blossoms!

The cherry blossoms represented, for me, something I had not yet experienced in the District and I was so excited for them to arrive. At Ohio University, we had a cherry blossom festival of our own so I thought it would be much of the same … but I was wrong.

Leading up to my cherry blossom pop, I did a little second-hand research … While riding the metro, I got bored and noticed a Washington Post on the floor of the car, so I picked it up and to my excitement it was the history of the cherry blossoms and the Japanese ambassador that brought them over! Turns out the first planting happened on March 27, 1912 (the same year the Titanic sunk) with first lady Helen Taft breaking ground with her tiny shovel. But this happy moment in time was just as fleeting for the Japanese ambassador, Sutemi Chinda, as the cherry blossoms themselves as their lives were plagued by tragedy. In short, the family lost a son to an explosion pre-cherry blossom festival and another later to suicide. So now that I was intrigued by the bittersweet history of the festival, I was ready to experience them.

My friend, Anna Marie, and myself decided Thursday afternoon was the perfect time for our visit. We didn’t head over to the Tidal Basin, or as my friend calls it “that water by the monuments” until sunset, but it was gorgeous! Even though it was the first peek day of blossoming, the crowds were not horrendous and there were pockets of picnics all over, creating a quaint and romantic setting for the photo shoot that ensued.

Of course we took advantage of the macro settings on our commercial point-and-shoots, trying to capture the essence of the blossoms and the moment, but really we just wanted to show off pictures of up-close blossoms with blurred monument backgrounds. We also took “traditional” flowerface shots, a phrase Anna Marie coined for taking coy portraits of the blossoms near your face … usually fashioning them like an accessory, of course I couldn’t take this seriously.

We also got yelled at by an old man because Anna Marie was up in the cherry blossom tree trying to get a closer view. The man yelled up to her, “You can’t climb that, it’s a national monument!” He was the only rude person we ran into.

After our photo shoot was over, we just took in all of the beauty, oggling at the sheer mass of blossoms. That was the difference between OU’s trees and DC’s. I’m not sure just how many trees line the basin, but they are full of heavy blossoms and the view is just breathtaking; I was so upset that I couldn’t capture it all on my camera.

When the sun went down, we followed the herd away from the Basin as we excitedly shared our photos with each other and bragged about which one we’d use as our new Facebook photo. Then Anna Marie exclaimed, “I’m going back tomorrow,” and she did.

Neighborhood joint tries again at RAMMY award
By Cydney Cappello

Where can you go where everybody knows your name?

Cheers?!

For something a little closer to home and a lot less lonely than watching re-runs by yourself, you can head to Washington Boulevard and Pershing Drive to EatBar, recently nominated for a RAMMY for Best Neighborhood Gathering Place.

The RAMMY’s are the annual awards given out by the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington, the 80-year old organization “fighting for the right to eat, drink, and be merry. Hospitably, responsibly and profitably.”

This is the second year in a row for EatBar’s nomination as Best Neighborhood Gathering Place; the gastropub lost out to The Liberty Tavern last year.

“The nomination came through and we learned about it last Tuesday and Joey Alvarez our Chef-de-cuisine and myself went to the nomination ceremony and we were both very humbled to be nominated,” EatBar general manager Matt Molaski said. “It’s great to be nominated in a category that isn’t just voted on by members of the Restaurant Association, but a public voting category, which is very important to us.”

EatBar opened in late 2006 when it was repurposed from just the bar attached to Tallula, to a British-style gastropub combining bar foods, creative cocktails, craft beers and an extensive wine list.

Aside from the cozy interior with their comforts-of-home menu, EatBar entices customers to come back again for their eclectic brunch events.

“Saturday mornings we do classic cartoons like ‘Looney Tunes’ and ‘Scooby Doo’ and Sunday mornings we do family-friendly full features, a collection of Disney movies or something like the ‘Land Before Time,’” Molaski said. “Sunday nights, we start popping the popcorn, the drinks start flowing and we’ll do movie nights. This past Sunday we just did ‘Sex in the City’ with a cosmos theme.”

If that’s too much family time, go on a Monday night for Wii Bowling in the back lounge with your neighbors or join their mailing list to learn when the next afternoon wine tasting is.

“We are very proud of what we do here and we would like the rest of the Washington area to see what we are capable of and what we’re doing on a day-to-day basis,” Molaski said.

EatBar opens daily at 4 p.m., you can vote for them at Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington April 29 – May 5.

Winners of the RAMMY awards will be presented with a crystal obelisk engraved with the category and the winner’s name June 6 at the Mariott Wardman Park Hotel, according to RAMW special assistant to the president Betsy Allman. Once a restaurant has won in a category, they cannot be nominated again for five years.

Check out what your neighbors have to say about EatBar:

DCFoodies.com review

Yelp! Entry

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I’m a former reporter at the Las Vegas Sun where I covered breaking news for their award-winning Web site. At the Sun, I was allowed the freedom to pitch my own stories and take and edit photos and audio to enhance stories with the understanding that most stories had to be completed that day. I also become familiar with the site’s Django-based content management system, learning how to upload stories, video, photos and audio.

I am a 2008 graduate of Ohio University’s E.W. Scripps School of Journalism with an emphasis on online journalism and a certificate in the Global Leadership Center. The Global Leadership Center was an internationally-focused business and marketing program where we took on real clients each quarter and completed a project for them. Through this program, I have traveled to Chiang Mai, Thailand to work on a candle marketing project with seniors at Chiang Mai University, researched a Hare Krishna community from New Vrindaban, VA for Harvard University’s Religious Pluralism Project and researched Internet usage in the U.A.E. to present Web site improvements to entice business travelers to Marriott International in Washington, D.C.

While I’ve always been interested in marketing, journalism has stayed important to me as well. Throughout my education, I’ve always balanced my schoolwork with different roles at Speakeasymag.com, our student-run online magazine. From the winter of my freshman year, to my senior year, I held the positions of staff writer, assistant entertainment editor, entertainment editor and multimedia director. I also interned with everyone from the Naples Daily News to WashingtonPost.NewsweekInteractive, where I honed my CMS, writing, photo and audio skills. I also learned how to shoot and edit video and take and stitch VR photos for our church guide at the Post. I’m a sponge and I want to continue learning how to improve journalism.