On Tuesday night, my wife and I went out for dinner, by ourselves, no kids, for the first time in a long time. I decided to take the advice of Tommy Wells, DC Councilman from Ward 6, who I met at the Zipcar Low-Car Diet kickoff event. He mentioned that he used Zipcar for a lot of things, including going out on the town to places where Metro might not go. The best part, he said, was picking which of the many fun Zipcars he wanted to drive that night. Having made the decision to do a Zipcar Date Night, I had to decide: the Mini Cooper or the BMW 3 series? I ended up picking the Mini, because I had heard it was a lot of fun to drive.
I took the bus from work down to Ballston, where I picked up the Mini “Manchester.” From there, it was a quick trip home to pick up my wife, and we were off to Et Voila, a Belgian restaurant in Palisades NW.
My daughter loves to play “Spot the Mini” on the road, she couldn’t believe we had one in our driveway!
My wife getting ready to hop in.
The Zipcar Mini did not disappoint. A word of warning though, the layout of the controls and the dashboard is not like your other cars. Give yourself a little extra time to familiarize yourself with it, otherwise, you may think that those paddles by the steering wheel are the horn, instead of manual gear shifters like they really are. The Mini was surprisingly roomy and definitely fun to drive. And parking was no problem at all, even on the crowded streets of DC.
Our dinner was wonderful, from the ham-wrapped endives to the steak and mussels, to the chocolate mousse dessert (and don’t forget the wide array of Belgian beers, but go easy since you have to drive the Zipcar home!). We took our time and lingered until it was time for “Manchester” to go home to Ballston. Our date was a great success, and the Mini was definitely one of the highlights. After all, who really wants to go on a date in a minivan?!?!
The D's 