Goodbye Berkeley, Hello Washington DC!

It begins NOW! I left Berkeley October 1st at about 7 am, it was a weird morning. I said goodbye to the house I grew up in at 1726 Sonoma Avenue and got on plane bound for Washington D.C. I had originally planned on taking a couple hour layover there before heading to Buenos Aires but I decided to spend $150 on a four day stopover to check out the city. My good friend Tristan is a first year grad student at George Washington University here and offered me a place to crash so I took advantage of it. He would maybe regret this later. Story to follow. I have a couple other friends living here too so it made a lot of sense to check out the place. Not to mention that I hadn't spent any real time here before this week.

The actual traveling portion of this leg was not the most fun thing in my life. My bags are HEAVY HEAVY HEAVY but somehow the scale at the United check-in counter didn't read them properly so I didn't get charged. Not sure if that's such a good thing. I also got run through secondary security, probably because of my one-way ticket. I then happened to get a small child behind my seat who didn't grasp the concept that HIS tray table was attached to MY seat. This made for an especially bumpy ride.


more pics at http://www.pbase.com/afirestein/washington_dc

I landed at about 8 pm and got in a cab to head to Woodly Park where Tristan lives. I had originally planned on taking the metro but my bags are so goddamn heavy I said screw it and coughed up about 60 bucks to get to my destination. There is no way I could take the metro with these things. While I was here in DC I did the standard tourist things. I checked out the Capitol, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, Arlington Cemetary, Holocaust Museum, etc...I also spent some time wandering around Georgetown with my friend Annie from school who is also living out here trying to make a buck and get a change of scenery. Georgetown's a nice part of town. This is due partly to the fact that they don't have a metro stop (trying to keep the riff raff out a la Marin County). That evening I went out to Arlington to have dinner with some family friends, Robin and Harry, who work for the State Department and are in the states for the year to learn Vietnamese. I wonder where their next posting will be? Robin was my babysitter when I was maybe a year old and I can't even remember the last time I had seen them so it was fun to catch up. They lived in Chile and other places in Latin America so it was appropriate to see them right before my journey. The nightlife here is pretty fun. I spent most of the time going out to places in Adams Morgan which seems to me like a typical strip of tacky, nasty bars you'd find in any college town in the country. Only this isn't a college town per se. Still it's the type of place where you can see a super drunk kid yak all over the ground in front of a good 20 people while his friend shrugs his shoulders and says "it happens..." The highlight of the nightlife for me was the 18th Street Lounge, a club owned by the guys of Thievery Corporation. Awesome ambience, great music.

It wouldn't be fair to end this posting without mentioning the funniest story of the past few days. I amaze myself sometimes. Before going out to see the sights on thursday, I decided to take a shower. I go to turn it on and twist the knob labeled "H". Nothing comes out. I can hear water trying to make it's way through the nozzle, but nothing. I turn the "C" knob and it shoots out instantly. I'm pretty groggy from oversleeping so I just keep trying and trying and trying with the hot knob. I turn it back and forth probably a good 15-20 times but still nothing. I figure well whatever, I'll just take a shower before I go to Robin and Harry's and I leave. For like 6 hours. Little did I know that at the exact time I was trying to take a hot shower, there was a guy in the basement replacing the water heater meaning he cut off the access to hot water. I had turned the knob back and forth so many times and no water came out that I just figured it didn't work. I get back at about 5 pm to find the shower running. I figured Tristan, who had said he would be back at about 8, had just come early and was taking a shower. Nope. I open the door to his room, which he keeps locked, to find a makeshift steam room. The ENTIRE place was filled with steam, the mirrors were fogged up, condensation was dripping from the ceiling. It was bad. My first thought is oh shit, the electronics! The floor was soaked, his bed was soaked, my bags and my clothes were soaked. Luckily, for both of us, but mostly for me nothing of value was damaged. I immediately thought there goes all the money I've saved up to live in South America because I just ruined thousands of dollars of stereo and computer equipment. It ended up being all good though. Not quite sure how, but it did.



The room I almost destroyed...

On that note, I will finish this post. I leave DC at 9:45 tonight. Next time you'll hear from me I'll be in Sud America!