Washington, DC
Saturday, June 30th

I think the entire SPS crew, students and faculty slept in today. When I finally woke up I helped get the gang ready to head over the Air and Space Museum near Dulles Airport. I have seen this already so I passed on the outing and I rode my bike down to the Adams Morgan neighborhood. I wanted to check out this place called Tryst. It is coffee house/bar/restaurant. I can already sense the anger mounting in Tusky and Weiss at the mention of a coffee shop. Well Tusky, this one has beer on tap so even you would like it. I hung out for a couple of hours. Just basically sipped some coffee, caught up on writing, and read some. All of these tasks were interrupted from time to time for some good old fashioned people watching. It was an enjoyable place and a quick bike ride away, despite the killer hill on the way back to school. I will definitely be back.

Tryst coffee house in Adams Morgan

More views of Tryst

After I got back to school I cleaned up and met up with Mason, another friend from Rhodes. We went over
to meet some his friends of his who were having a party. Their house was near Howard University in the Shaw district of DC. Brigitte, who is from Austria, was the women who hosted the party. Is was eclectic mix of people at the party, there were musicians, DJ’s, professors, embassy staff, World Bank economists, and of course a big bear. There were at least five different nationalities represented. The food was incredible. She made pork loin and had sausages from Austria. On top of those foods she made some sort of Peruvian ceviche that was incredible. Beer and wine flowed freely and there was also some incredibly potent Sangria.

Adams Morgan street views

Some of the folks I had met before. Emily is one of Mason’s friends from the World Bank. Good Bye Wolf’ man. She participates and sponsors these crazy road rallies all over the globe to raise awareness of different global issues. The most recent was the Greaseball Challenge 2007. The Challenge is a charity biofuel road rally from Washington, DC to Costa Rica.(Route) The point of the rally, besides the obvious fun, is to promote sustainability on a shoestring using renewable fuels. Check their blog. The stories are both hilarious and entertaining. Emily’s team was called, “The Quest for the Golden Grease”. One of my favorite stories is when they hung out with Willie Nelson for a couple days in Texas. Apparently the stories of Willie are not exaggerated at all. Here are links to their photos from the cross continental odyssey.

Emily(left) with Willie and teammate Nicky (right)