No, not the kind that you see in bad American movies. Carlito and I Greyhounded it all the way to DC this past weekend. No fuss, no sketch, high performance, delivered. We were 30 minutes early each way.
As soon as I stepped into Union station (a 5 minute walk from the Greyhound bus stop), I remembered why I love DC so much. The Metro is soooo nice. Unlike pee-infested, rat-swarming New York subways, the Metro smells nice, has high ceilings, is well lit, and people are very civilized. On the NY subways, it's survival of the fittest. If you can't muscle your way in (or out, for that matter) during rush hour, you're missing your stop (or taking the next subway). If it's very crowded and you barely make it on the subway, you better damn well cling on as tight as you can to the person closest to you, lest you get pushed out of the train. On the DC metro, commuters actually allow people to get off the train before they get on. A very logical progression. And some of you might know how anal retentive I am. Everything has a system, and it should be obeyed. Weirdly though, you aren't allowed to consume ANY food or beverage on the DC metro, but that is the reason it is so clean. Still, the laws can be a little much. I wanted to take a sip of water after a long day of shopping on Saturday, but Alli-o looks at me in horror as I start to uncap my bottle. It was as if I would be hauled to jail by the Metro nazis. Apparently though, they would. Oh well. I was too law-abiding to test the boundaries of the Metro nazis.
I must say, the highlight of my trip was, well, there were two. Top of my list was when I threw a cupful of beer at my friend's face at his housewarming party. I'm a great party guest, please invite me! I don't bite, but I sure can throw a good beer... The whole reason I even thought of getting out of NY and going to DC was because of this evite I got to a housewarming party in DC. Anyway, the housewarming party was going very well, I talked to some interesting people, saw a very nice and swanky apartment complex. As Alli and I were leaving, I felt it appropriate to say goodbye to my friend. But being the type of person that people love making fun of, naturally, my friend decides to make some quick goodbye jibes at me as I'm about to go out the door. As my friend was laughing and making fun of me, his friend reaches out with a cup of beer. At that very moment, I felt a need to gesticulate wildly in protest of these wild (and completely untrue) statements. I ended up knocking the cup of beer out of his friend's hands, and right onto my friend's face. It was great. I was very proud of myself. Completely unplanned, but perfect in execution.
Oh, and number two on my list was dinner before the housewarming. We had a great Ethiopian dinner with awesome company. We had my NY colleagues, and we invited our DC colleagues as well. A group of 10 of us, some of us who had never met. It's always so amazing how SMALL this world is. Everybody knew someone who knew someone else. At the table of 10, we had 4 Mich grads. I found out that I actually had taken a road trip with one of them within the first few months of my freshman year!! We went to Toronto IN THE SAME VAN to play a tennis tournament at U of Toronto! How crazy is that? After we found that out, it took us a while to recover our senses. That was by far, the biggest coincidence of the night.
During the same DC trip, I also met an old old friend who played on the rugby team back in the day. Was so good to see an old friend, even though I wasn't too close to him. Always something interesting going on in his head, which kept things very interesting. I mean, honestly, who in the world will troop up to NY just for an idiotarod competition. This idiotarod competition is basically a team of 5 people doing what they can to pull a shopping cart across a specified distance. It's like dog-sled racing, but with humans and shopping carts.
I found out that expired IDs do not work in DC, especially not in Adams Morgan. Dammit. At the ripe old age of 25, I got rejected from three bars (including one that had NOBODY inside). We ended up at a bar which was an overwhelming culture experience. Some reggae place with lots of weed smoker type people. haha. You take what you can get, y'know.
I also had my fill of cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory. I've filled my quota of cheesecake for the next few months. Also enjoyed a very romantic, low-key Italian dinner with Alli-O the first night I arrived. We slept lots, laughed lots, made fun of each other, shopped... Again, I cannot complain.
By the way, I'm going back to Singapore in less than a month for my first Chinese New Year in 6 years. I need a new set of clothes to usher in the New Year!! I am definitely the champion of taking vacations on the job. I think I must have taken more than 3 months of vacation (not including the 3 months I was back in Singapore) since I started work in April 2004. Excited to be home. We'll see what adventures I can find myself on this trip home. Last time it was Hanoi (the subject of my first few blogs). Perhaps this time it will be Vientiane?
Time to get some sleep so I can be a high performer, high value-added employee again tomorrow. Good night, folks.
As soon as I stepped into Union station (a 5 minute walk from the Greyhound bus stop), I remembered why I love DC so much. The Metro is soooo nice. Unlike pee-infested, rat-swarming New York subways, the Metro smells nice, has high ceilings, is well lit, and people are very civilized. On the NY subways, it's survival of the fittest. If you can't muscle your way in (or out, for that matter) during rush hour, you're missing your stop (or taking the next subway). If it's very crowded and you barely make it on the subway, you better damn well cling on as tight as you can to the person closest to you, lest you get pushed out of the train. On the DC metro, commuters actually allow people to get off the train before they get on. A very logical progression. And some of you might know how anal retentive I am. Everything has a system, and it should be obeyed. Weirdly though, you aren't allowed to consume ANY food or beverage on the DC metro, but that is the reason it is so clean. Still, the laws can be a little much. I wanted to take a sip of water after a long day of shopping on Saturday, but Alli-o looks at me in horror as I start to uncap my bottle. It was as if I would be hauled to jail by the Metro nazis. Apparently though, they would. Oh well. I was too law-abiding to test the boundaries of the Metro nazis.
I must say, the highlight of my trip was, well, there were two. Top of my list was when I threw a cupful of beer at my friend's face at his housewarming party. I'm a great party guest, please invite me! I don't bite, but I sure can throw a good beer... The whole reason I even thought of getting out of NY and going to DC was because of this evite I got to a housewarming party in DC. Anyway, the housewarming party was going very well, I talked to some interesting people, saw a very nice and swanky apartment complex. As Alli and I were leaving, I felt it appropriate to say goodbye to my friend. But being the type of person that people love making fun of, naturally, my friend decides to make some quick goodbye jibes at me as I'm about to go out the door. As my friend was laughing and making fun of me, his friend reaches out with a cup of beer. At that very moment, I felt a need to gesticulate wildly in protest of these wild (and completely untrue) statements. I ended up knocking the cup of beer out of his friend's hands, and right onto my friend's face. It was great. I was very proud of myself. Completely unplanned, but perfect in execution.
Oh, and number two on my list was dinner before the housewarming. We had a great Ethiopian dinner with awesome company. We had my NY colleagues, and we invited our DC colleagues as well. A group of 10 of us, some of us who had never met. It's always so amazing how SMALL this world is. Everybody knew someone who knew someone else. At the table of 10, we had 4 Mich grads. I found out that I actually had taken a road trip with one of them within the first few months of my freshman year!! We went to Toronto IN THE SAME VAN to play a tennis tournament at U of Toronto! How crazy is that? After we found that out, it took us a while to recover our senses. That was by far, the biggest coincidence of the night.
During the same DC trip, I also met an old old friend who played on the rugby team back in the day. Was so good to see an old friend, even though I wasn't too close to him. Always something interesting going on in his head, which kept things very interesting. I mean, honestly, who in the world will troop up to NY just for an idiotarod competition. This idiotarod competition is basically a team of 5 people doing what they can to pull a shopping cart across a specified distance. It's like dog-sled racing, but with humans and shopping carts.
I found out that expired IDs do not work in DC, especially not in Adams Morgan. Dammit. At the ripe old age of 25, I got rejected from three bars (including one that had NOBODY inside). We ended up at a bar which was an overwhelming culture experience. Some reggae place with lots of weed smoker type people. haha. You take what you can get, y'know.
I also had my fill of cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory. I've filled my quota of cheesecake for the next few months. Also enjoyed a very romantic, low-key Italian dinner with Alli-O the first night I arrived. We slept lots, laughed lots, made fun of each other, shopped... Again, I cannot complain.
By the way, I'm going back to Singapore in less than a month for my first Chinese New Year in 6 years. I need a new set of clothes to usher in the New Year!! I am definitely the champion of taking vacations on the job. I think I must have taken more than 3 months of vacation (not including the 3 months I was back in Singapore) since I started work in April 2004. Excited to be home. We'll see what adventures I can find myself on this trip home. Last time it was Hanoi (the subject of my first few blogs). Perhaps this time it will be Vientiane?
Time to get some sleep so I can be a high performer, high value-added employee again tomorrow. Good night, folks.
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