Backing up, I had a great birthday with the family and Amanda around. Unfortunately, she was only up for Wednesday morning through Friday afternoon, but we made the most of our time. We went sledding a couple of times and skating downtown once, both of which I haven't done probably since high school. We also saw Doubt, which was pretty sweet. Other than that, the days were pretty calm and spent with the family. We made a carrot cake for my birthday that was delicious but mysteriously deflated in the middle. Good times.
Saturday was some family skating, something not done in many years, especially since Jay hasn't had a winter for a couple. Martin was down from the hut, so there was a little yurt get-together with Emily around too. I got coffee with him and Molly on Monday too, which was the last time I'll see him for a while. Funny, considering spending the entire summer with him in China, then him being one of the few friends still around in Brunswick for much of the fall.
Sunday the family took advantage of cheap Maine rates at Sugarloaf to get in a day of skiing. Driving up took forever, as it was snowing, but that helped keep the lines to a bare minimum and still gave us a good amount of time. The conditions there were one of the best I've had, with plenty of packed powder and little to no grooming of the newly-fallen powder above that. Also it wasn't too cold or windy, which is always a nice change. That might be the only time that I get to go downhill skiing this winter, so it was a great day to go.
Monday night, Jay had the great idea to go smelting, which he had done once with a friend. The two of us and Lauren headed to Bowdoinham with plenty of booze and ipod juice to keep us going. The first couple of hours we had no bites, so the booze and music came in especially handy. Finally, and randomly, I pulled up two in quick succession, and they kept coming after that.
I think we ended up with 17 or so, no paltry catch. We battered and friend some up right there. Lemon pepper made them quite good.
I made sure to get a good amount of xc skiing in, going with Jay on Tuesday and Wednesday. The first time was especially good, probably the best conditions that I'd ever had.
Tuesday was also a last Joshua's and enjoyment of their popcorn.
Getting ready to leave was a little strange. I've been used to just throwing anything I could possibly want into the minivan and drive two hours away, so needing to fit everything into one bag was a challenge not seen since studying in Spain. It was made more a mental task in planning since one of my alloted bags was my guitar. And clothes space was at a premium since I decided early on that my speakers were also coming in the bag. It worked, eventually, although there were some shirts and books sharing room with my guitar, and the bag was stretching at the seams.
It was also hard to leave Maine, since it would be a little more than a simple two hour bus ride away, and I don't foresee getting regular breaks in order to make the jaunt. It's been nice having the whole family together for several months. And it's been nice to have kitties jump on me and make me sneeze.
But I wanted to get down before inauguration, and traveling closer to the weekend would have been a mess. Thursday the 15th, therefore, was go time.
Traveling all day Thursday, I opted for the hallowed Boltbus from Boston onward, and I have to say I was pretty impressed. They know what they're doing by having wireless and AC power on board. I can personally say that the 9+ hours spent in their buses went by much faster by being able to watch movies on my latop, especially movies that I've had for months/years and never gotten around to watching.
On the list were Солярис (Solaris, 1972), which I think I had heard about through my aesthetics class. It was pretty sweet, very Russian. There's a remake with George Clooney from 2002, which I've also heard is good. The second was Hotel Rwanda, which for whatever reason I never got around to seeing back when everyone else did. I even saw Paul Rusesabagina when he spoke at Tufts a couple years ago, having not seen the movie. In hindsight, I think I would have gotten a little more out of it. But, with that said, it was good stuff. Two cheery movies for the bus ride.
While changing buses in NYC, 30+ police cars raced up 34th. Confused pedestrians couldn't cross the street for minutes as the squad cars and other emergency vehicles tore by. I still don't know what exactly they were doing, but it did prompt me to look up NYC news and read about the plane that successfully water ditched in the Hudson. I changed buses around 5pm, so it would have been a little late for that incident, but maybe they were still related somehow. But yeah, I don't think I've seen that many police cars together since Blues Brothers.
Amanda picked me up from the stop in DC, and we got back to her family's house in good time. I even got some of the unpacking in the basement out of the way so that my nice clothes wouldn't be any more wrinkled than they had to be. I'm glad that I didn't go lightly on packing warm clothes from Maine.
Friday I had an interview at CSIS for an internship, so we'll see how that goes. Afterwards I walked to Georgetown to pick Amanda up from work, and we went home to get some stuff done and wait for her friend to come for dinner.
Saturday I listened in on another conference call with her dad, this time for an infrastructure development group. Interesting stuff. At night I went out with Dupont and a bunch of other Tufts people down for the weekend. Got a glimpse of what grad students look like down here.
Today Amanda's working all day again, but I'm going to try to get into the city for the inaugural concert and will probably be watching football later in the day.
So, in conclusion, DC is good, and I think I'm going to be enjoying my time here.
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