Christine's Birthday

Since it is Christine's birthday, what else could we do than having lobster roll, attending a really hilarious rally other than finishing off the day with friends for dinner ..



Let's see if I recall all the names: Liz, Karl, Rich, Audrey, Allan, John, Christine, me and Ming.

The food was Thai at ThaiPhoon (gotta love the puns with Thai places here ... another restaurant is called 'Thai Tanic') and it was overall very tasty, but not memorable .. I had red duck curry, but I find that dish as a noodle soup thing at Republic in Manhattan better.

But overall the service was very nice and the prices were very reasonable.

(Thaiphoon reviews on TripAdvisor)

Rally to restore sanity

Too tired to write much now ... but here is my edited video



And my pics:



I will add some youtube videos from other sources here and maybe some links to good news articles ...

Jon Stewart opens the rally

Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) and Ozzy Osborne's musical duel

While Colbert and Stewart were arguing that they want to not board either the Peace Train nor the Crazy train, they finally settled that they would both agree on the Love Train (song by the O-Jays)

I like this fish eye wide lense video ... gives a nice impression of how crowded it was. And this one was mainly shot close to where we were (we also could see the sign 'my feet hurt' close by)

Some mixed highlights from CBS.

Actually, the whole thing is on C-SPAN.org ... it is pretty low res and only 4:3 (even the jumbotrons on site were 16:9), but around the 2 hour mark there is a fun ditty .. there is a nice audience recording (poor viewing angle) on youtube.

More basic info on wikipedia

This HuffPo article has the transcript of the final speech Jon Stewart gave, which was a bit more on the serious note.

And here a collection of 100 signs at the rally ... most of the signs were quite funny (see my pics above)

Red Hook Lobster Truck

What a fun late breakfast / early dinner ...

I have heard about this wild combination of popular, location changing food trucks and the only way to know where they will be next is following them on twitter.

One of them that sounded really interesting after reading the Washington Post review is the Red Hook Lobster Truck. And here is another article in the WP.

We knew where it would be, but we also knew that it would be very crowded in that area ... so we feared the worst ... But we got very lucky ... when we lined up there were only about 10 people in front of us and they have not even started taking orders yet ...

So, we had a fairly short wait and were rewarded with some very tasty and generous portions of de-shelled lobster on a buttered roll for 15$ per person.



I wish I could go again tomorrow and try their shrimp roll ... but alas, I am flying back to Italy and they do not return until Monday.

But you people in the area, you can follow them on twitter.

Hallowe'en Party

Thanks to my friend Christine, I got to experience a local Hallowe'en house party ... and it was a lot of fun ... although I was dead tired.

One thing I love about being in the US ... people a very open to strangers ... although I did not know anyone at the party but Christine, I ended up chatting with people left and right ... a lot of it might have been superficial blah blah ... but it was fun, drinks were free, there was candy ... overall a great time.

Chicken wings and video chat

One of my big cravings whenever I get back to the US is having spicy chicken wings ... and I know some people will roll eyes .. but so far, the best I can get with a certain consistency in quality, is at Hooters.

And while having lunch alone, what could make the experience even better? Yes, free wifi and a fun chance to say goodnight to J, while the charming Hooters ladies watch at what is going on and we had Julius putting on his Hallowe'en mask again .. initially the wait staff though that was some video playing .. took them a while to realize that there was a little boy 4000 miles away talking to his dad ...



The food was great as usual, as was the friendly service ... no weird feelings for coming in and have lunch all by myself .. plus the added costume bonus ..

Things that have changed ....

This is going to be an open collection of observations ... It has been many years since I last lived in the US .. and since then I have been coming back for 3 trips and 1 layover ... and this time I noticed:

- No more free plastic bags. They actually ask you if you need a plastic bag at the supermarket and if you say yes, it will cost you 5c per bag .. in terms of plastic trash and carbon footprint I welcome this step ... too well I recall the days of free 'double bagging'

- Getting carded. 10 years ago I was highly amused when a cashier lady somewhere in the heartland asked to see my ID .. on this trip .. I have to show my ID all the time .. no matter how old I look.

- No smoking. Seems that people have given up on that. Cigarettes are 7.50$ and you hardly see anyone smoke in the streets ... I wonder WHERE they smoke .. can't smoke in bars / restaurants anymore .. even close to the entrance is often forbidden ..

- Free wi-fi. I find it incredible to see how many restaurants have a big 'free wi-fi' sign in the window ... and you can see that a bazillion people in there have their laptops open on the table ... it is like 'if I cannot be online here, I do not eat here' .. it seems friends go to cafes together with their laptops, sitting across from each other .. and instead of talking verbally, maybe they text-chat .. who knows. It is similar with mobile phones / texting .. half the people you pass seem to be talking to themselves (no, they have a bluetooth earplug) or they are manically typing a message.

- Hooters is still awesome .. more on that later

Georgetown, turning foliage, pretty houses, Vietnamese lunch

Since getting to Georgetown from my B&B is a nightmare with public transport, and the weather being much nicer today, I decided to walk all the way, which was very pretty ... but then Georgetown itself becomes even prettier ... no wonder it is one of the most expensive neighborhoods of Washington.

Many things to see, pretty houses, very colorful autumn trees and here and there some fun Hallowe'en decoration.

In terms of 'attractions', I passed by the last house JFK lived in before he moved into the White House, I saw Georgetown University, from there a steep staircase leads down back to M street, this was a filming location in the 1973 movie 'The Exorcist' (still trying to locate a good clip from the movie, all I find on youtube is tourists walking up and down the stairs) [ah, here it is.]

Then walking along the picturesque CO canal and found a pretty fancy mini-mall.

Later on I found the Old Stone House, the oldest house (still standing).

And just before lunch, I went down to the waterfront, which is very nice ... you can sit there and watch the big planes flying close by on their landing approach to Reagan airport.

On my way back I found a nice small Vietnamese restaurant where several people were eating by themselves. I had a bowl of phở, which was nice, but I bet in Ha Noi it is much better. It was cheap :)

I walked back via Dupont circle and then all the way up on 18th street .. towards Adams Morgan the street is lined with small shops, restaurants, bars ... it looks very colorful.

Lots of walking again today (according to the pedometer in my iPod, 25871 steps) .... I will add some detail later, for now ... here are the pictures:

Sashimi lunch

Thanks to this nice gentleman and the North Sea Restaurant around the corner, I had a very pleasant sushi / sashimi platter for lunch .. and finally also some more salad.

(The website makes the place appear very fancy ... I have to take some more pictures .. it is bit more like a dive .. selling drinks and cigs in the back .. but the quality was nice enough and 15$ for the whole thing was ok)

Super rainy in DC today

It was already raining when I woke up (thanks to some idiot who called my new DC number 3 times, at 5:45) .. but it got a little better when I walked to the subway station ...

I went to Pentagon City (Where i had been with R & J exactly 3 years ago), which is a much nicer mall compared to yesterdays (yesterday's was so underwhelming that I did not even bother to write about it ... ) and I had some shopping success .. i.e. 2 pairs of blue pants for Julius, which he needs for school, for 25$ ... that money would barely get us one in Italy ...

Nice thing about an indoor mall, weather is not a factor ... so, I was pretty surprised when I hopped on the train, which has to surface while crossing the river, and I saw the water coming down in sheets ...

Sure enough, once I got out of the train I started getting wet, but instead of walking, I took the circulator bus this time.

Lots of walking today

I managed to sleep quite ok (no wonder, after staying up until 1:30) and did some first shopping at the neighborhood CVS drug store. Then after breakfast (nice bagel), I got a cheap mobile phone deal at Radio Shack, very similar to what I had 3 years ago in NY, but this time with a local number for DC, basically, for 25$ you are set with phone and minutes enough for the week (unless you are an incredible chatter box, which I am not)



Although I studied the public transport options, I decided to walk instead all the way to the center ... according to google maps about 1 hour ... and with some stops, i.e. Chintown and Urban Outfitters, it took me about 2 hours to meet with Christine for lunch at the American Indian Museum (need to check if that is the correct name.)



The weather had been nice so far, during lunch it just drizzled a bit. Afterwards I took the subway (and then another 15 min walk) back to my B&B, just in time to say good night to Julius via video chat.



I had planned to take a nap, knowing that the evening would be going to be long again, but somehow I could not sleep.

At 6:30 PM I started walking again, and again to the 9:30 club, where Christine was DJing from 7-9:15 and then the main event started. Underworld. I had heard about them, but could not really place them. I was amazed to find through wiki that the 2 founding members did a new romantic hit named 'doot doot' back in the 80ies ... A song I very well remember.

(Here some videos of them on youtube: link1, link2 and link3)

The show was pretty cool, great light show & video projections and Christine managed to get me into the 'vip' section, though unlike last night, this time there were some bouncers, asking to see some pass, because the owners would have some guests in that area ... but I later chatted with the owners, very nice people and so I did not have to sweat in the dancing crowd (by then my feet were hurting quite some). The show was over at 11PM and we took a taxi back home.

First night out.

Great way to overcome jetlag is to not succumb to going to bed early and try to stay up ... and my DC friend Christine had a DJ gig at 9:30 club around some DJ sets of some British DJs / musicians (Jon Hopkins and Four Tet)



Since I was late like crazy I had missed both her sets and Jon Hopkins, but got to listen to Four Tet ... and besides .. it had been a long time since I have been clubbing ... it was fun .. a bit surreal (being super sleepy and chugging down diet coke for it's caffeine must have added to the whole experience)

Gladly the whole thing was very civil in terms of time schedule ... I had arrived at 9:45 .. and by 11 PM it was already pretty much over (this is when they would start dancing in Italy ...

So, I managed to stay up quite well .. and after doing blog updates, I shall go to bed now.

Arrived in DC ... immigration ordeal

Not much to add about the actual flight .. I managed to sleep for about 90 minutes before my stiff and hurting neck woke me up.

Just before landing we got some snack, either a tuna calzone, or German style hot dog, which was pretty cool .. a veal sausage backed into a pretzl roll .. and to top it off, the sausage was filled with that grainy sweet mustard one would expect with this.

Once we arrived at the immigration check point I was shocked about the huuuuge line ... I asked some guy 'from this point, how long' and he said '2 hours' ... and he was not kidding .. incredible ...

So, a bit before 2 h were up I reached the checkpoint and that guy looked over my passport very thoroughly and realized that once I had a green card .. and the question was, what happened with that ... so, that got me a nice yellow B on my customs form, which means second interview .. and that took another loong time, in total I was having fun with immigrations for 3:45 h ...

In the end, I had to officially give up my status as legal resident (which is fair, as I have not been living in the US for a long time) ... but I was also informed that if / when I want to return to the US as a resident, I can go to an embassy or consulate abroad and ask to have my residency status back ... the very nice officer Michael Harris (who reminded me with his good mannered humor a lot of Sgt. Powell from the first 2 Die Hard movies) made it sound quite easy .. well .. we shall see if that ever comes up again ...

So, plane landed at 4 PM .. at 8 PM I finally boarded my super shuttle to get to my bed & breakfast ... and when I arrived around 9 PM, there was nobody there! (Later I found that they had emailed me 'late check-in instructions' ... but there was an emergency number and I asked as nice guest lady if I could use her phone to call.

More on that B&B later, I have a very nice 'single' room, whcih could actually sleep 4 people ... on the other hand, the bath is shared with 2 other rooms ...

Trip to DC, leg 1

10:40 is such a nice civil time to fly out … No middle in the night getting up and panic … I had pretty much everything prepared and so we woke up at our pretty regular time, and the Ritsu and Julius drove me to the airport.
Ritsu had found out that there is actually a 30 minutes free parking zone, which I had never seen before.

No problems at check-in, we tried to upgrade me to BC using Ritsu's miles, but as it turned out … Flight full, BC even overbooked … Hooray …

The first leg TRN – FRA was ok, besides the guy next to me getting into a fight with an FA (which was kinda embarressing on both their behalves), not much to report … We landed in FRA a bit later than I liked it, plus the bus transfer took an extra 15 minutes … By the time I had raced towards the 'area for flights to the US, with extra security screening' boarding for my FRA – IAD flight had already begun.

But thanks to a nice security guy, who actually was pretty approachable, he let me jump to the head of the line and I was through in a wiff … But sure enough, my plane just had to be at the farthest gate (A65) .. But I made it just in time …

Flight is indeed super crowded, some lady stole my nice window seat, so, I asked for my seat back and she said I can take hers (in the middle of the middle, neither asle nor window) and I declined, saying that I booked window for a reason (first time traveling without kid, the window is MINE)

Food was ok, came pretty late somehow. Cattle class feels really cramped with 3 grown up men occupying the space that I usually share with Julius and Ritsu … But ah well .. 3 hours down, 5 to go …

Oh, and what is it with long daytime flights and having no personal inflight entertainment ? The only movie they are showing on the CRT is toy story 3 … Seen that one too many times already

This is a first!

On Sunday I will fly to Washington, DC! All ALONE!!! This will be my first trip without kiddo or wife since 2001! This will be a whole new experience for me.

And why am I going? Well, the initial motivation came from the fact that Julius has a week off in November and I was looking around for stuff to do with him ...



and the other factor was Jon Stewart's "Rally to restore sanity" ... as an avid Daily Show fan I was pretty intrigued what it would be like to go there.

So, the idea was born that I would go with Julius, but after some further family discussions Ritsu suggested I should go by myself (in her own words "[...] this trip of yours is kind of like a 'bonus' as you take care of the house and J all the time...") and now I am going alone, a week earlier.

I am looking forward to eating typical American food again (hello Hooters, here I come), meeting my old DJ pal Christine, who hopefully will show me some of the clubs, maybe I even get to do some trick or treating (though I am flying back on Hallowe'en) , then of course there is shopping ...

Well, we shall see. Since I know that blogging all after one week leads to chaos (i.e. the Nepal trip), I collect all my thoughts for now here in a more or less orderly fashion, and only open to the few people I will give the link .. and when I am back it will be added to the main blog.