To Do This Weekend
With two big rallies invading DC this weekend (the crowd at the Glenn Beck rally alone is expected to number in the hundreds of thousands), you may want to avoid traveling into the District altogether. The good news is that there’s plenty of fun things to do over here on the quieter side of the Potomac.
On Saturday, the Center Hiking Club is sponsoring an all-day, 12-mile historical walking tour of central Arlington, which will include visits to colonial, Civil War, trolley, and W&OD railroad sites. There will also be stops at cemeteries, log cabins, historic springs and old mills, among others. The tour will start at the Clarendon Metro Station at 9:00 a.m. and end at the Ballston Metro Station around 7:00 p.m. The cost is a mere $2.00. Contact organizer Bernie Berne at (703) 243-0179 or bhberne [at] yahoo.com for more information.
Also on Saturday, Shirlington Village is holding its second annual “Wags ‘N’ Whiskers” pet event from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. See our previous article on the event for more information.
Finally, on Sunday, expect a large crowd at Pentagon City’s Fire Station No. 5 for a public ceremony where Arlington County will formally accept a gift of World Trade Center steel from New York City. Representatives of New York’s Fire Department and 500 motorcyclists will be escorting the steel from Brooklyn to Arlington. Between the escort, the middle school choir coming up from Georgia for the event, and spillover from the aforementioned Restoring Honor rally, we expect this to be a very well-attended event. It will take place at 11:00 Sunday morning at 1750 S. Hayes Street. If you have to drive, we recommend parking at the Pentagon City mall garage.
Flickr pool photo by Christaki.
Free Stuff Friday: See ‘Centurion’ Gratis
Do you like free stuff? Do you like bloody, gory movies about ancient wars? Do you want to see Dominic West, Detective Jimmy McNulty of The Wire fame, play a character named “General Titus Virilus?”
If you answered “yes” to all three questions, then our friends at the Arlington Athletic and Social League have an offer for you. They’re letting ARLnow.com readers get in on a giveaway of free tickets to a sneak peak screening of the upcoming Roman war flick Centurion.
It’s apparently along the lines of 300 and it’s gotten reached a respectable 53% on the Tomatometer.
Click here to RSVP for the screening.
And yes, we’re going to try to turn “Free Stuff Friday” into a regular feature. If you’re a local business that has a legitimately great free offer for our readers, email arlingtonnews [at] gmail.com with the subject line “Free Stuff Friday.”
A Look At Cleopatra’s Mediterranean Bistro
You can still order chicken cacciatore and shrimp scampi at the former Pines of Italy restaurant at 237 North Glebe Road. But now you can also have it with baba ghannouj, chicken schwarma and baklava.
Cleopatra’s Mediterranean Bistro opened in March with little fanfare outside the immediate neighborhood and the local Arabic community. Serving up Middle Eastern food in addition to Italian carryovers from Pines of Italy, Cleopatra’s is as eclectic as it is unassuming. For those who care to indulge, there’s also a bar.
Cleopatra’s prices are exceedingly reasonable, and there are coupons available online to make a visit even more affordable.
During Ramadan (which runs through Sept. 10) the restaurant is offering a $9.95 Iftar buffet that features all-you-can-eat meat, seafood and vegetable dishes.
When Ramadan ends, lunch service will resume, as will the four-night-per-week live music and belly dancing and the late-night live entertainment on weekends.
Owner Sami Khan keeps Cleopatra’s open until 4:00 a.m. Thursday through Saturday. He says many young people will stop by after coming back from the downtown clubs. The restaurant usually draws a weekend crowd of about 100 people, mostly Middle Eastern and mostly in their 30s, he says.
More photos, after the jump.
Possible Attempted Sex Assault in Williamsburg
Update at 12:20 p.m. — Police have provided more details and this sounds more like mischief than malevolence. The suspect touched the girl’s rear end, then mooned her and her companion before running away, police say.
We’re hearing that police are investigating an attempted sex assault that occurred just before 1:00 last night in the Williamsburg neighborhood of north Arlington.
According to initial reports, a man in his late teens or early 20s dropped his pants and then grabbed the victim, a 17-year-old girl.
It happened at the intersection of North Tacoma Street and Williamsburg Blvd. A police K-9 was brought in to try to track the subject — no word yet on whether any arrests have been made.
New Name For Whitlow’s New Rooftop Deck
Whitlow’s plans to open its new rooftop deck at some point next month, but it will be opening with a different name than originally announced.
Instead of “Fu Bar” — a military reference that also hinted at an envisioned Asian influence — the deck above Whitlow’s on Wilson will now be called… drumroll, please… Wilson’s on Whitlow’s.
Get it?
A few ARLnow.com readers called the Fu Bar name “lame.” (We liked it, actually.) What does everybody think about “Wilson’s on Whitlow’s?”
Photo by Monika & Tim
