That's it, too much time has passed for me to figure out the timeline, so this one's going to be more of a mash-up of our last days in Washington before heading for NYC.
I remember visiting Bohdan at the Library of Congress and getting completely lost in the maze of corridors, tunnels, and - I'm pretty sure - teleport pads. Actually, some of those passageways were surprisingly creepy: all concrete, with bare pipes and wires sticking out. I half-expected us to pass a group of military personnel explaining to their superior how they're making great headway with establishing the headquarters, but things being still very much in the air.
In the evening, we went to a quiz at Fado, which is - as you might have guessed from the name - an Irish pub (huh?) The whole quiiz thing was completely new to me. I think it's some anglo-saxon thing. Basically, there's a quizmaster (in our case: a hilarious quizmistress) who reads questions, and every participating table gets an answer sheet, which they discretely fill out. There are several thematic rounds (I think ours had 5) of 10 questions, and then the winner is announced. Right now I can only recall that one of the rounds was about internet domains, and that we failed to identify .cy as Cyprus. And that another one was about Boston Red Sox, which made everyone very annoyed that Marcy Wasn't There (I met Marcy two days later, and only then learned how cool she is, so my level of annoyance wasn't exactly up to par). The whole thing was a whole lot of fun, even if I didn't contribute in any way. Then again, few people did, apart from Adam, who as it turned out is some sort of quiz freak (to the point of being televised).
I also remember visiting some museums with Ana, and having a sort of epiphany. Here's the thing: I first visited the States in 1999. My dad wanted to spend his 50th birthday in New Orleans, and I tagged along, mostly because Tori was on tour and that meant I'd get to see her live. I spent most of that trip in a car, driving from D.C. to New Orleans, and then from New Orleans to New York. In late August. With no air conditioning. Yeah. When I wasn't in the car, I was busy Squandering Opportunities. Sleeping in, instead of going to church to listen to gospel music. Staying in the air-conditioned hotel, instead of taking a - mid-day, mind it - stroll through New Orleans. And, as my father reminded me on our way to the airport, sleeping on a bench in Central Park, instead of going with him to the Museum of Modern Art. I remember sitting on the bench, but I must have blocked out going full-on hobo. What can I say, I was a weird, introverted kid, and none of that stuff seemed all that appealing at the time.
Well, after browsing through a single floor of the National Gallery of Art I found that, though by no means introverted anymore, I'm still definitely not a museum person. And so, while Ana plowed bravely through our cultural heritage, I busied myself crafting the most concise and effortless-seeming declaration I could come up with* (west building), and reading Spook Country (east building).
The next night Bohdan took us to an open mic thing at Busboys and Poets - a bookstore/restaurant/spoken word venue. There were a lot of Obama poems, and loads of stuff about social injustice. I remember feeling very uncomfortable, since I find bad poetry to be really painful (bad performance art of any kind, actually - I'm the sort of person who switches the channel, cause they can't watch Idol contestants embarassing themselves), but squirming and groaning at tales of the white man's oppression just didn't seem like a viable option. In effect, I was wound-up pretty tight, and ready to start explaining how Poland never had any colonies at the drop of a hat. There was also a schizophrenic junkie who did a pretty impressive - at least as far as I got it - poem about crack cocaine. Only in America. Finally, a group poem was passed around the room. Everyone was supposed to add a single line, and I think our party's contribution ended up being reasonably lucid:
I remember visiting Bohdan at the Library of Congress and getting completely lost in the maze of corridors, tunnels, and - I'm pretty sure - teleport pads. Actually, some of those passageways were surprisingly creepy: all concrete, with bare pipes and wires sticking out. I half-expected us to pass a group of military personnel explaining to their superior how they're making great headway with establishing the headquarters, but things being still very much in the air.
In the evening, we went to a quiz at Fado, which is - as you might have guessed from the name - an Irish pub (huh?) The whole quiiz thing was completely new to me. I think it's some anglo-saxon thing. Basically, there's a quizmaster (in our case: a hilarious quizmistress) who reads questions, and every participating table gets an answer sheet, which they discretely fill out. There are several thematic rounds (I think ours had 5) of 10 questions, and then the winner is announced. Right now I can only recall that one of the rounds was about internet domains, and that we failed to identify .cy as Cyprus. And that another one was about Boston Red Sox, which made everyone very annoyed that Marcy Wasn't There (I met Marcy two days later, and only then learned how cool she is, so my level of annoyance wasn't exactly up to par). The whole thing was a whole lot of fun, even if I didn't contribute in any way. Then again, few people did, apart from Adam, who as it turned out is some sort of quiz freak (to the point of being televised).
I also remember visiting some museums with Ana, and having a sort of epiphany. Here's the thing: I first visited the States in 1999. My dad wanted to spend his 50th birthday in New Orleans, and I tagged along, mostly because Tori was on tour and that meant I'd get to see her live. I spent most of that trip in a car, driving from D.C. to New Orleans, and then from New Orleans to New York. In late August. With no air conditioning. Yeah. When I wasn't in the car, I was busy Squandering Opportunities. Sleeping in, instead of going to church to listen to gospel music. Staying in the air-conditioned hotel, instead of taking a - mid-day, mind it - stroll through New Orleans. And, as my father reminded me on our way to the airport, sleeping on a bench in Central Park, instead of going with him to the Museum of Modern Art. I remember sitting on the bench, but I must have blocked out going full-on hobo. What can I say, I was a weird, introverted kid, and none of that stuff seemed all that appealing at the time.
Well, after browsing through a single floor of the National Gallery of Art I found that, though by no means introverted anymore, I'm still definitely not a museum person. And so, while Ana plowed bravely through our cultural heritage, I busied myself crafting the most concise and effortless-seeming declaration I could come up with* (west building), and reading Spook Country (east building).
The next night Bohdan took us to an open mic thing at Busboys and Poets - a bookstore/restaurant/spoken word venue. There were a lot of Obama poems, and loads of stuff about social injustice. I remember feeling very uncomfortable, since I find bad poetry to be really painful (bad performance art of any kind, actually - I'm the sort of person who switches the channel, cause they can't watch Idol contestants embarassing themselves), but squirming and groaning at tales of the white man's oppression just didn't seem like a viable option. In effect, I was wound-up pretty tight, and ready to start explaining how Poland never had any colonies at the drop of a hat. There was also a schizophrenic junkie who did a pretty impressive - at least as far as I got it - poem about crack cocaine. Only in America. Finally, a group poem was passed around the room. Everyone was supposed to add a single line, and I think our party's contribution ended up being reasonably lucid:
the blossoms are falling
the kidneys are failing
But hark, steps are coming up the stairs
It is the season's first case of influenza
the kidneys are failing
But hark, steps are coming up the stairs
It is the season's first case of influenza
There were also peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (really good!), and gloomwings systematically fried by Bohdan's sunshine blasts, which I sorely miss. The blasts that is.
* which I ended up delivering in stump form
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