During peak bloom, we went to a show at the Kennedy Center.

Washington D.C. is one of my favorite cities in the United States, and whenever I have the opportunity to go into town, I take it. I also love seeing shows at the Kennedy Center, as I think the theaters and space is gorgeous compared to some of the other local locations. That endowment is probably shiny for the Kennedy Center.

Anyways, I saw the show Company up in New York back in March 2022, before it prematurely closed, and when I saw that the tour of the show was going to the Kennedy Center, I decided to buy tickets for the entire family to go. It was my Christmas gift to my family, as we all still live together.

That said, the Kennedy Center has cheaper seats for $60 in the balcony, which is quite reasonable compared to some of the Broadway houses in New York City. I was able to get second row balcony seats for all four of us for less than $300, which is such a steal compared to what I’ve seen out there in the world.

As we would be driving to DC to see the show, we decided to make an entire day out of it. We only live an hour outside of the city, so it isn’t too special, but we wanted to make a deal out of it.

Here’s what we did!

Driving in DC during the cherry blossom’s peak bloom is an absolute nightmare.

When I bought these tickets back in November 2023, I had no idea that this was going to be peak bloom weekend in DC. The day before our matinee show it rained pretty hard, so people were not able to go to peak bloom and see the blossoms then.

As I mentioned before, it only takes an hour usually to get to Washington. This day, it took us over two hours on a Sunday because of how terrible the traffic into the city was.

We were so worried about getting to the Kennedy Center on time, and while we were originally planning on parking on the street because it’s free, we made the executive decision to park at the venue and pay for it.

It was $25, but it was worth it. Our GPS made us go through the streets of Georgetown because of the insane amount of traffic, and then as we were driving through Foggy Bottom we could clearly see that there were no spots. If you wanted to find one, you’d need to circle, hope you get lucky, or find someone on their way out.

Going back home at 6 PM, there was still traffic because everyone was going home then, too.

Company at the Kennedy Center was a delight.

As mentioned, I had already seen Company, so I knew what to expect going into this. We arrived at the Kennedy Center twenty minutes to 1:00 PM, which was just enough time for me to stop in the gift shop and buy a t-shirt. My one regret from the original Broadway show was not purchasing a shirt, so I fixed that problem.

We then took the elevator up to the balcony level, and took our seats. From the second row of the balcony, you could see the stage pretty clearly, and we had somewhat central seats on the house right side.

When I saw Hamilton in the Opera House I had seats a few rows back and I still thought that the view was pretty good for the price. We all enjoyed Company and its humorous moments, then we filed out of the theatre and when to the cute little observation deck outside.

We stayed there for about twenty minutes, then headed back to the car. I’d made a dinner reservation, so we had to go to the other side of town.

Rumi’s Kitchen is our favorite food in town.

I discovered Rumi’s a year prior to this, as I was purchasing theater tickets for my family to see Sanaz Toossi’s English at the Studio Theatre. My sister then purchased a Rumi’s gift card for us to eat before that show, and the rest was history.

Anyways, we did the same routine this year. She got the gift card, and I got the tickets. I set the reservation for 4:45, and we easily found street parking that was five minutes away from the restaurant. There was still traffic getting there, though, because of the blossoms.

We were seated right away, then our waiter accidentally served us sparkling water even though we did not ask for it. The go-tos for this restaurant are the kabob dishes and the gheimeh, but I decided to try their ghormeh sabzi today and split with my mother, who ordered kabobs.

I found the ghormeh sabzi to be extremely salty—it was something you could taste in each bite. My mother agreed, and we realized sticking to the kabobs here probably was the best choice.

Full and satiated, we walked back to the car, then made the drive back home in traffic. My mother wishes she could have seen the blossoms, but it would’ve been too difficult with our schedule and how crowded it was.

Follow me below on Instagram and Goodreads for more.