Frock Fridays: Target Summer

A few months ago, Jon's cousin (and my friend!) Rose emailed me to say that she'd signed up for a retreat in Virginia in late June - did I think she could fly over from London a bit earlier to visit me and see DC?  We're almost family, so of course I said yes!  Rose had been to the United States once before but didn't think that skiing in Colorado counted as seeing the "real" America, so I had a challenge ahead of me: introduce Rose to the best of my country.  We got a jump start with the convenience/news store at the airport, where Rose was overwhelmed by the variety and size of soda bottles.  (I had to talk her out of getting 20oz of Mountain Dew at 7:30pm EST, which should have felt like 12:30am BST to her.)  Score one for the United States!

Rose wanted to go downtown the next day to walk around the National Mall, which she learned is pronounced maul if you're American (or mawul, if you're from Long Island) rather than mahl, as it is in England.  We started off at Starbucks and then ran into my favorite hole-in-the-wall bagel place in Chevy Chase, DC for bagels, lox, and cream cheese on our the way down to the White House, the first stop on the This Is America tour.  After that, Rose headed off to see some monuments and museums with a friend - though I think her favorite part of the whole day was getting out of DC's heat and humidity into air conditioning!

We visited the Washington National Cathedral together on Wednesday afternoon as they were preparing to celebrate the Supreme Court's ruling against DOMA with prayer and song, but otherwise the intrepid traveler did a lot of sightseeing on her own over the next few days and met up with some other friends she knew in the area.  But there was one place I knew I had to take her myself if she really wanted to get to know America: Target.

Dear readers, is there anything in America better than Target?  It's the number one thing expats living abroad miss about this country, according to the comments on my Instagram.  Rose was suitably impressed.  (She wouldn't let me post the photo I took of her in the Pop Tarts aisle, but rest assured that she was wowed.)  We tried to figure out what the English equivalent was - the closest we got was that it was a mashup of a Tesco Extra with a huge Asda but with a smaller grocery section and better quality home goods and clothing.

Speaking of clothing... Rose walked out with two cute frocks, and I bought a maxidress that I've worn every day since.  It's so cute and comfy!  I've been pairing it with my own accessories, but if I went full Target (like I did back in February) I'd have bought a silver metallic belt to pick up the colorblocking of the dress, silver and green sandals, and a matching mint cross-body bag.  You can never have too many white cardigans, and the fuchsia studs echo the pinks of the dress!  A whole fab outfit for $115?  Target, you do America proud.

linking up with {long distance loving} and Follow The Ruels