My god, not some R&R time… surely not?

After the madness and exhaustion of the last few weeks, slowing the pace down a bit seemed like a damn fine idea – I suspect that I may have collapsed in a heap on the ground and possibly had a big tantrum otherwise.  So the last few days have been a lot more relaxed, which has been great.

I took a few hours to do some shopping the other day – well, that’s not entirely true.  I took an hour or two to buy a few bits and pieces that I needed (including a US mobile, as my other one has well and truly died now) … and then spent the next couple of hours at the Irish pub that I talked about in the last blog post.  Does it make me a bad person that I get a strange sense of satisfaction from sitting under an an umbrella at a  bar, reading a magazine, drinking beer and watching the rest of the world doing that ‘working’ thing that I’ve heard so much about?  Oh well, so be it I guess…

Met up again with Bec & Dearne after aforementioned pints, and had my first ever Costco experience.  And what an experience it was.  Bulk amounts of everything you could imagine, at very cheap prices.  There were a lot of books I wanted to buy – through gritted teeth I managed to reduce it to only two due to space constraints.  Sigh.  It’s hard when you’re paying 7 or 8 bucks for a new paperback and less than 15 for a new hardback…

Next day was spent almost entirely planning the rest of my time in the US – well, travel and accommodation anyway.  Got there in the end, but it took a while – last minute lodgings in large east coast US cities are both expensive and hard to find.  So the plan is for me to head to New York for a couple of days (I’m actually writing this on the bus which, believe it or not, has free wi-fi, when it works, so I’ll post this too if I finish it before my battery dies), then Boston for 4 days, then back to DC via NYC and maybe Philadelphia before flying out to Seattle for a week or so to hang out with some friends there (hi guys!).  I’ve pushed my return flight to Melbourne out by a few days, so now leave San Fran on July 3, getting back on the 5th.

We did go for a drive to a decent pizza restaurant and then a wander round Old Town Alexandria, which was really nice – old cobbled streets, gas lanterns outside houses, etc – and watched a fireworks show down by the river.  Not that anybody seemed to know what it was in aid of, so we decided it was to welcome us to Washington DC.  Well, we had travelled a long way to be there, after all…

Yesterday started with a two hour power walk through a nearby nature reserve (I just have to mention how wonderfully green and forested it is around Dearne and Andrew’s place, it really feels like you could be out in the woods somewhere and yet it’s only 10 minutes from downtown DC), then we headed off to Georgetown to look round the National Cathedral (I think that’s what it’s called … can’t reach my map to check right now).  Very impressive from the outside and in the grounds – unfortunately I misread the sign out the front and thought I couldn’t go inside because there was a service due to start, but Bec did wander round and tells me it was lovely inside as well.  Dearne then chauffeured us round a little more (just for something different – she’s a great tour guide!) and we checked out a few of the embassies and ambassador’s residences.  Some of them were pretty spectacular, though the NZ ones seemed fairly unexciting – maybe all the money was spent on something more important like beer and pizza.

Georgetown is an awesome part of DC – incredible old houses, beside both woodland and the Potomac River, but with plenty of shopping, cafes etc to keep you amused as well.  We checked out the Old Stone House – amazingly, it’s a house made of stone that’s pretty old.  Truth in advertising, I guess.  Apparently it’s the oldest building in DC – we couldn’t go inside because it had just closed, but walked round the outside and the gardens.  From there down to a canal that runs parallel to the river – it used to be the main transportation route through the area with barges pulled along by mules, but is now a preserved National Park area.  Tranquil and beautiful, which is amazing given it’s literally a street or two from the mayhem of M street, the main shopping area that runs through Georgetown.

From there to a waterside park for Hershey’s ice-cream – not a patch on the stuff in Paris but not too bad for all that, and far too much of it.  Burp.  We then had a couple of drinks beside the water which sadly wasn’t quite as enjoyable as it probably sounds – most of the tables in the various bars were reserved for diners, so the people just having a drink were crowded into small little areas without even that great a view of the water.  But hey, it beats working for a living …

Dinner was at a seafood restaurant on the waterfront – the food was pretty good but I think we were both still stuffed from the World’s Biggest Ice-cream – neither of us made much of a dent in our mains.  Makes for a good amount of leftovers, at least.

Which brings me to today.  Up early for another walk, then out the door and down to the bus stop, bidding farewell to Bec & Dearne – hopefully I’ll see them both when I come back through DC.  Dearne has been a wonderful host and tour guide, especially given how much is happening with the house renovations at the moment, and I’ve really appreciated how welcome both she and Andrew have made me feel.  Thanks heaps guys!! So I’m maybe half way to New York now – running behind schedule due to an accident on the freeway that left traffic motionless for about 45 minutes – and looking forward to the next adventure…

Catch ya!