Snow! Baltimore!

It snowed last week. Unlike Texas, when it snows In DC you don't get the day off, people do not begin hoarding food and water and there is not wide spread panic. But it does mean that traffic is much worse than usual, there is salt all over the road and you have to walk through wet snow wherever you go. I think I finally realize why snow can be such a hassle. When you have to go to school or work in regular clothes (as opposed to ski apparel) your shoes get messed up and your pants get wet. We went out to play in the snow anyway, and its a good thing we did because by the next morning it had transformed from nice new snow to sloppy, wet day old snow mixed with mud.

We went to the nearby Iwo Jima Memorial to play in the snow. Although it is dark out it was only about 5:30 pm. It gets dark very early here. Mary looks extra cute in the snow.

Our Snowman is disfigured. We did not build it from scratch. Someone else built it, then someone knocked it over, then we tried to fix it. The end result looks like the "Thing" from the Fantastic Four.

The Iwo Jima Memorial looked really cool with snow on it.

Last weekend we went to Baltimore again. We had three things on the agenda. First we wanted to see the Edgar Allen Poe House. Second, we wanted to go to the National Aquarium and finally, we were going to have dinner (Maryland Crabs) with our friend from FSI, Diane Holcombe, who lives in Baltimore and commutes to DC every day. Of course we started the trip by getting lost trying to get on the George Washington Parkway and spent the first half hour of our trip going in a big circle. Once we got to Baltimore, as we were driving to the Edgar Allen Poe House, I commented to Mary that I thought Baltimore's reputation as a "rough" town was undeserved, in fact I thought it was rather nice...then we went four more blocks and found ourselves in the worst area I have ever been to in my life. The website for the Edgar Allen Poe House said it was not walking distance from downtown (about 10 blocks) or the B&O Railroad Museum (3 blocks). I now understood why they discourage walking. The buildings were boarded up, covered in graffiti and a rag tag assortment of people shuffled up and down the street, some pushing shopping carts, some just huddled on street corners occasionally casting glances over their shoulders. A man was having a loud, obscenity laced cell phone conversation within about three feet of some little children playing "vampire". I thought we might be lost, then I realized we were right in front of the Edgar Allen Poe House. It is fitting that Edgar Allen Poe's house is in a very scary neighborhood. The house itself is about the size of a three story walk-in closet. They keep the front door locked, you have to knock to get in and there are warnings not to give money to panhandlers. The tour took about ten minutes and we were out of there. I was worried the whole time that the car tires would be missing when we returned.

We then made our way over to the Aquarium and discovered that it was $1.00 day and everyone in Baltimore and the surrounding area was there (regular price is almost $30). The aquarium was sold out. The Inner Harbor was jammed with people, because not only was the Aquarium a dollar, every attraction in Baltimore was a dollar. Surprisingly, there was not a big crowd at the Edgar Allen Poe House. I guess they were all at the Inner Harbor.

We had some time to kill before meeting Diane for Dinner so we climbed to the top of a big hill and took a picture.

Dinner was good. We ate crabs. In the final irony of the day, we dined on Gulf Crabs from Texas because Maryland crabs are not in season.

I finished Con-Gen on Thursday (I graduated with "honors" since I only got one question wrong out of all four tests). Now we have to get ready for the move. In no special order we need to arrange for our HHE to get to Caracas, line up the movers to pack our apartment, ship the car, square away insurance, get the car serviced, visit Hagerstown (where our stuff is stored), get my passport (the diplomatic one) get our visas for Venezuela, stock up on all the supplies we are going to take to Venezuela (chronic food shortages), square away our travel plans, get the dogs squared away for travel to Venezuela (go to the vet, get required certificates and inspections) and do all the other things I have forgotten about, but have to be done. But, there is always a rainbow at the end of the storm.

The Great Falls of the Potomac

With Dan and Kathy Baker.

Did I Mention the Drag Queen Races?

The Night Before Halloweeen.




Sheer camp madness.




Dame Edna was my personal favorite.

Someone Told Me Its All Happening at the Zoo...

I do believe it, I do believe its true.

Its a light and tumble journey
From [Arlington] to the park;
Just a fine and fancy ramble
To the zoo.

But you can take the [DC Metro]
If its raining or its cold,
And the animals will love it
If you do.

Somethin tells me
Its all happening at the zoo.

The monkeys stand for honesty,
Giraffes are insincere,
And the elephants are kindly but
They're dumb.
Orangutans are skeptical
Of changes in their cages,
And the zoo keeper is very fond of rum.

Zebras are reactionaries,
Antelopes are missionaries,
Pigeons plot in secrecy,
And hamsters turn on frequently.
What a gas! you gotta come and see
At the zoo.

Last Sunday it was a beautiful, cold, clear day so we set out to do something we have talked about since arriving here in the DC area...we went to the zoo! The National Zoo ( http://nationalzoo.si.edu/ ) is located in Rock Creek Park ( http://www.nps.gov/rocr/ ) and is situated between two Metro stops in a very cool older neighborhood. The Neighborhood is not old by DC standards but by my standards it is older. Most of the area buildings are of the “art deco” style, which I have always found appealing.

We took the Metro which is an easy ride, although , as is always the case we missed the train by about 10 seconds. We actually saw it pulling away from the platform as we raced down the escalator. So, we had to wait an agonizing fifteen minutes for the next train. I always feel compelled to run to the Metro station in order not to miss the train, but whenever I run, I get there a few minutes after the train leaves and I have to wait. Of course if I simply stroll to the station I get there as the train leaves and spend the next fifteen minutes silently berating myself for not running to the station.

The main attraction at the National Zoo are the Pandas, which were very cute although I thought the “Panda Sperm” exhibit was a little over the top.

Because it was cold outside the Pandas were quite active. They ate, rolled around, tussled with each other a bit (to a loud chorus of “ohhhh” as in “how cute” from the gathered crowd) and generally lived up to their billing as really cute. However, the tigers were the best part as far as I was concerned. I learned several things watching the tigers. First, tigers swim. In fact, they swim quite well even when it is about 40 degrees outside. There is a moat around their enclosure and they have some large floating balls to play with. The tigers would just jump right into the water and splash around playing with their ball. So, if you are ever being chased by a tiger do not jump into water. The second thing I learned is that a tiger can cover about fifty yards in about three huge steps. Their enclosure is about that long and one of them literally bounded from one end to the other to pounce on a mate (who had the coveted ball) in three huge leaps. It took about 1.5 seconds. I remember thinking that I would be tiger food before I even realized what was happening. The third thing I learned is that tigers are very patient. One fella simply watched the others until they got near him and then pounced. I have to admit...I like tigers.

Other animals on display included Hippos, Elephants, Orangutans, Zebras, various birds from around the world, including a very orange bird from Venezuela and some really small horses from Mongolia.

Speaking of Mongolia...I failed to mention in my previous post that I sold my Xterra to a gentleman from Mongolia who was purchasing the truck for his brother who still lives in Mongolia and planned to ship the Xterra to Mongolia. Imagine that, my Xterra is going to be in Mongolia. Cool.

We spent Thanksgiving with friends and ate a wonderful turkey dinner. Of the seven adults present for dinner, four spoke fluent Japanese and two, including Mary, spoke fluent Spanish.

We also had two French speakers. I contributed a salad and after-dinner songs on the guitar. I have learned to sing, actually I have learned not to care how bad I sound, and have realized that everyone else sounds pretty bad as well but no one really cares.

We went on a nice walk to Roosevelt Island ( http://www.nps.gov/this/ ) on Thanksgiving and we went for an earliny morning walk to the Lincoln Memorial ( http://www.nps.gov/linc/ ) on Sunday morning at about 7:00 am.

Other recent events...Friday I went to Dulles Airport with my CON-GEN class and we watched the DHS (Dept. of Homeland Security, which now includes what used to be Customs and INS) at work. We got to stand in the booths as people are questioned as they enter the US. These were all non-citizens on visas (because issuing visas is a big part of Foreign Service work). We got the full tour including the dreaded “secondary” area where the rubber gloves are kept.

That same night we went to see Alejandro Escovedo (http://www.alejandroescovedo.com/ ) play at the Wolf Trap ( http://www.wolftrap.org/ ) which is a national park that is a concert venue. In the summer it is an outdoor amphitheater, in the winter the shows move inside. The acoustics are incredible in the “barn”. Alejandro Escovedo played with a string quartet (cello, violin, two acoustic guitars) and for his last five songs he played without any amplification at all, not even a microphone for the vocals, which is almost unheard of for a modern concert.

In the coming weeks we will be seeing Handel's Messiah performed at the National Cathedral and we have tickets for the special New Years Party at the Kennedy Center.

Mary is now in CON-GEN and we are beginning final preparations for the Departure to Venezuela. So much to do...

Cowboys 34 Jets 3 -- Nice!

The title says it all.

The C&O Canal

We celebrated the beginning of Thanksgiving by going for a bike ride along the C&O Canal which runs along the Potomac river from Georgetown to West Virginia or beyond. Here are links for all the historical and geographical details:

http://www.nps.gov/choh/
http://bikewashington.org/canal/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesapeake_and_Ohio_Canal

The Potomac River is not really navigable above Washington D. C. as you quickly encounter a series of rocky patches , rapids and waterfalls as it descends from the Appalachians toward the Chesapeake Bay. The C&O Canal was built to enable travel by water to and from our nation's capital from points west. Obviously it is no longer in use. What remains is a long flat trail that is wonderful for biking. The trail is the old tow-path used by draft animals to pull barges along the canal. At some points the canal is about 50 feet higher than the river, with an extensive network of locks to raise and lower the boats.

So, today we rode from our little apartment in Arlington, across the Key Bridge into Georgetown and got on the tow-path and headed north. We rode about seven miles and turned around because the sun was starting to go down and we still had the uphill part of the trip on the return home. That is the downside of living on the top of a hill. All bike rides end with a serious uphill climb. We are literally on a summit, so no matter what direction we go, the ride home is uphill. From Georgetown we have to ride through an area called Rosslyn which is very urban and has a lot of traffic congestion. About 3/4 miles up the hill is our neighborhood which is less urban and has more residential streets and less traffic. It is still uphill, though.

The weather was beautiful, low 70's, sunny...a perfect Autumn day. The tow-path goes through a heavily wooded park and the fall colors are finally in full glory. I am told that the colors are somewhat muted this year by the warm weather and the drought they have been experiencing, but it still looked good to me. It was a good start to Thanksgiving to get out and see the colorful trees.

We hope that everyone has a great Thanksgiving. Go Cowboys! Hook 'em Horns!!!

Mary is Now Fluent in Spanish.

We have been busy!!!

First, Mary passed her Spanish Exam, which means that she is now certified as "fluent" in Spanish by the U.S. Dept. of State. This is a huge accomplishment and the culmination of more than six months of intensive language training, sweat, study, and stress. Mary immersed herself in Spanish by watching movies in Spanish, listening to Spanish radio, reading books in Spanish and talking Spanish every chance she got. She went to daily Spanish class and toward the end was doing extra one-on-one sessions to prepare for the test. I am very proud of her accomplishment. I took Spanish for eight semesters between the 5th and 8th grades, and four more semesters in college and she learned far more Spanish in only six months. Hell, all I can do is order a beer and find a bathroom. Now, Mary can speak fluent Spanish, she watches movies in Spanish (with the subtitles turned on in Spanish) and she even chastises me in Spanish. Most importantly she knows how to say "what is the purpose of your travel to the United States" and "may I see your passport" in Spanish!!!

Another stress reducer is that we finally sold my Xterra. We had it listed for months on Craig's List with no luck. We listed it on Cars.com (for $49.99, for the ad not the truck) and still no luck. We lowered the price on Craig's List, got an offer, took it and were subsequently flooded with offers from Craig's List, which proves that the key to getting lots of offers was to sell it. Is there a Murphy's Law covering this? We are now down to one car (Mary's BMW) which we will probably take to post. I am a little wary of taking a BMW to Venezuela, after all it fairly screams "I am a rich Gringo--rob me" while at the same time it also says, more subtly "I am a rich anti-Chavista - follow me, harass me, key my doors, spray paint me with Chavista slogans, break into me and steal my radio and bump me in traffic while giving me the Venezuelan equivalent of the finger." I guess that after a few months of abuse it will blend in with the other cars on the road and will say "I was stolen from a rich Anti-Chavista gringo."

We have kept our social life lively, even while counting down to the big Spanish Exam. We went to see Robert Earl Keen at the Birchmere and stood, literally, two feet away from him, in the front row. Here is a picture from the show, that I liberated from another web site. We were closer than the photographer.



We celebrated Mary's success on her Spanish exam by going to Club Iota to see a band called My Brightest Diamond (I would describe them as "interesting". It was a very enjoyable show, the singer is obviously an opera trained singer with incredible control of her voice, the songs were upbeat, but they did not rock my world.) On Saturday we met our friends Jamie & David Baker in Baltimore. It was my first ever trip to Baltimore and I must say I thought the city was rather pretty. As a side note to the trip...whoever designed the freeway system in Washington D.C. should be criminally prosecuted. Worst. Design. Ever. One example (I could devote a huge rambling post to this topic, but no one wants to read my rant): It seems like every freeway is named some variation on "95" so you end up taking 295 north to 495 west to 95 north where it intersects 395. It may not seem that hard to keep it all straight until you have about 3 seconds to decide whether to take the exit to 295 or stay on 395 while you are looking for 495 and driving on 95. Ok, one other thing. These freeways do not actually connect to each other, at least not in the traditional sense of connecting. It seems like the traffic planners had certain places in mind that they wanted everyone to go (and certain places they did not want people to go) and designed the roads to accomplish these tasks. Now, the places they want everyone to go are not the places that everyone wants to go, in fact I can't imagine why anyone would want to go to the areas where all roads seem to lead, but all roads seem to lead to the most scary 'hoods in DC. For example, no matter how hard you try to get from Virginia on 395 to 295 in DC heading to Baltimore, you end up heading into South East DC and exiting on Malcolm X Ave. Ironically, you can't get to 395 to Virginia from 295 in DC without being forced into the 'hood. However, if you want to get to the hood on 295, you are in luck because whether you are going north or south (or any other direction) and you get on 295...you go to Malcolm X Ave. Ok, another thing, the George Washington Parkway (GWP) is like a time warp. Once you get on you can never get off, but, and this is kind of weird, you can never get on the GWP either. You only get on it by accident, then you can't get off. If you try to get on, you can't. It is like a Zen lesson teaching you that you only get what you want by letting it go and not wanting it but once you get what you want you will realize that you don't really want it but you can't escape. That turned into a rant. My bad.

Mary and I are both in Con-Gen right now. It is a big relief after Spanish. Whew!!!

Our Tiny Apartment With a View

That is about all there is to it. It does have a nice view from the roof. And it is in a good location. And it is paid for. Not that bad I guess.

The Trip to D.C. - March 2007

I have to fast forward through the events of the last year so I will start with the most significant.

Mary and I drove to D.C. last March. It felt like we were caught in a whirlwind becasue she got word from the State Dept. that she was invited to an "A-100" class and it seems like a few weeks later she had an apartmemnt in D.C.

The drive up was actually fun. We pushed hard the first day and made it to Birmingham, Alabama where we stoped mainly because the radio said there were tornados touching down all over Alabama. We drove through some heavy rain and decided to call it a day. The next day we visited Sam Houston's birthplace (the picture above) and Great Smokey Mountains National Park. (below right) The next day we saw Shenandoah National Park and drove on the Skyline Parkway. (Below left) We arrived to D.C. about 5:00 pm an set about moving into our small apartment.


Next post...Mary's Apartment.

We Signed on to See the World, But All We Have Seen is West Virginia

Well, that is not exactly true, we have also seen Regular Virginia, bits and pieces of Maryland and more of Washington D. C. than we had hoped to see. The reason we have seen so much of D.C. is that we get lost a lot and no matter where you are or how you get lost in D.C. you end up in a dreadfully dangerous neighborhood. They actually have sensor devices in D. C. that can notify the police when a gun is fired and can triangulate the location of the gun shot. Cool. But what does that say about the number of gunshots they have to contend with?

In order to save a lot of time and typing I am going to fast forward through the events of the past several months. Mike: sold house in Houston, packed, re-packed, hauled books and clothes (Mary's) to Austin, packed more, Hauled things to Austin (repeat this step about six or seven times) went on a whirlwind tour of Texas (Lake Buchanan, The Ranch, Arlington, back to Houston) with a huge U-Haul truck full of stuff and pulling the Xterra on a trailer (thank you Paul!!!) Watched as the movers wrapped everything we owned in paper (including trash cans, laundry baskets, everything) loaded it into a truck and hauled it away. I don't know if I will ever see any of my things again, other that the things I brought with me. Our worldly possessions are (hopefully) in Hagerstown, Maryland where they will remain for the next 20 years or so. Then I drove to Washington D.C. in two days and started taking Spanish classes, which has proved to be a very humbling experience. It has proven to be rather difficult for me to master which surprised me given the number of people that speak Spanish in the world.

Mary: Came to D.C. back in March, went through a whirlwind "A-100" class to learn how to be in the Foreign Service and started studying Spanish. And studying, and studying and studying and studying...until it has all become a big ol' blur of studying. So far the Foreign Service has not been all that glamorous, mostly it has been just like going school.

We have had an opportunity to go and see some things. Here is a partial list (this is not in order): Monticello, Great Falls National Park, Harper's Ferry National Park, Fredericksberg, Iwo Jima Memorial, All of the Memorials on the National Mall including the Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, FDR, Vietnam, WWII, and the other lesser memorials. We have been to Rock Creek Park, Roosevelt Island and Georgetown where we walked along the C&O Canal. We have been to numerous bars and restaurants including the famous Madam's Organ in Adams-Morgan and the Birchmere where we saw the Cowboy Junkies. We have been to The National Gallery, The National Portrait Gallery, The Building Museum, The Postal Museum and several others. We have eaten Peruvian, Thai, and Afghan food. We also saw the Drag Queen Race, a three block foot race in high heel shoes featuring some of D.C.'s best (and worst) Drag Queens. The mayor of D. C. showed up and shook hands with the crowd and posed for pictures with the Drag Queens. D. C. does have its bright spots!!!

Most recently, we went to Harper's Ferry to see what Thomas Jefferson described as "perhaps one of the most stupendous scenes in nature.”



It was quite pretty, but I don't think that Jefferson had seen the Rocky Mountains, or the Grand Canyon or any place west of Harper's Ferry when he said that. For anyone interested here are some links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harpers_Ferry,_West_Virginia
http://www.nps.gov/hafe/

We ate at the Hilltop House which had a very nice view, but the buffet brunch was pretty weak. I guess we were paying for the view. There was a group of gay square dancers in the Hilltop House Hotel Ballroom square dancing to recordings of Doobie Brother's songs. That was something you don't see every day! A bunch of guys with handlebar moustaches dressed in rainbow square dancing outfits spinning each other about. We had to go all the way to West Virginia to see that! The park was pretty and like all National Parks very clean. We also got to walk along the Appalachian Trail, so now I can truthfully claim to have hiked a part of the Appalachian Trail (about 100 yards of it).