Capital City

Yesterday I went to DC to visit my friend O who is there finishing her last semester of law school at American University. Spring is exam season for law students, so O could only meet up with me for dinner. Luckily, I had never been to DC and I love exploring new cities. I downloaded some knitting podcasts and headed down to Penn Station (this was the first time I had ever listened to a knitting podcast and the ones I downloaded were a bit hit and miss. Any recommendations?) I got there around 9 and took the metro from Union Station to the Woodley Zoo (free admission). I really enjoyed their invertebrate exhibit, which probably means I should go to the aquarium before I leave Baltimore, and was  enamoured with the Amazonian Pavilion. I wonder if it would be unethical to have a pet stingray. As usual, the large animal exhibits freaked me out, although I was impressed by an exhibit called the O Line which allows the orangutans to move between their two exhibits on plastic-coated cables 50 feet in the air.

By the time I had completed a tour of the zoo, it was getting to be prime burning time and I had to get my rice paper skin out of the sun. I walked through Adams Morgan to 18^th and had lunch at Meskerem, an Ethiopian place that was recommended in the Bust travel guide. I had never eaten Ethiopian food before so I ordered the vegetarian messob which was a sampler platter of their most popular vegetarian dishes arranged on a spongy, pancake-type bread called injera.

This was accompanied by a sidedish of injera that had been carefully folded and rolled into tubes. It must have been the rubbery consistency or the fleshy colour, but they really looked like two flaccid penises lying side by side. And I thought I had ordered the vegetarian plate! I was all ready to dig in when I realized that I didn’t have any utensils. I did a quick scan of the restaurant just to make sure that no one had utensils but the place was fairly empty. The only other people in place were still waiting for their food, so they were no help at all. I figured this was probably an eat-with-your-hands type of situation, so I ripped off a piece of the penis injera, pinched some stew into it and popped it in my mouth. I’m not sure if this was the proper way of doing things, but it was fairly effective.

After lunch, it was time to take advantage of all of the free museums and galleries. I started at the portrait gallery. The Stephen Colbert portrait was gone but there was an exhibit about hip hop, Recognize, that was really good. I then went to the Smithsonian Museum which was very cool but kind of creepy back to back with the zoo since the animals I had seen walking around earlier in the day were on display stuffed. It’s probably better to do the visit in reverse. I walked around the National Mall, which isn’t a mall at all but a huge park. There was an outdoor sculpture museum which made me think of Japan; not just the Hakone Open Air Museum, but Roppongi Hills where there is one of these spiders.

There was also this gem. I almost burst out laughing when the woman next to me turned to her friend and in all seriousness said, “I never know what this is”. I’m not sure what the bird imagery is about, but seriously? Of course, that wasn't the only sexual sculpture in town. I wonder if that woman also had trouble figuring out what this reminded her of.

I met up with O for dinner at Jaloe. After a nice gossip session, O's new Spanish beau joined us and helped us order the best tapas I've had since Barcelona. He was quite embarrassed that we had ordered sangria and refused to be photographed (all jokes of course). We had a great time and could have closed the place down if I didn't have to catch the last train back to Baltimore and if O wasn't entangled in that law school business. Best of luck on your exams, O!

Comments

[lisa]

yes, that was the proper way of eating it, and good for you for going solo to a restaurant while traveling.

[suelas.]

I agree with LtK on both counts. Also, maybe all bird imagery is weird. Miss you!!!

[O]

So good to see you Al! Nice entry, as always.

[Choochie]

Wow! What an adventure you're having! Glad to hear (or maybe not) that you're not yarning your time away.

Have you listened to Stash and Burn?
I also listen to bark and knit... simply because I own "barks" and I knit. But I really think you'd like Stash and Burn.

T and I missed you this visit! but we'll see you and C in June!!!