And So It Begins... Again

Sunday, and my second hotel week began today. I'm feeling pretty good about this one. The group seems nice and I'm in a jolly mood these days. I went to Whole Foods this evening to stock up on stuff for the week, and what is staring me in the face at the check out? A fluffy, yellow little chick, sitting on top of a no. 2 Noi & Sirius chocolate easter egg!!! Needless to say, that found its way into my basket. Yum... a little taste of home.

Speaking of which, I made fishballs this week. I didn't have any Icelandic haddock, sadly, so I made do with New Zealand orange roughy. It was decent, but nowhere near as delicious as the real thing. Sean, however, dazzled with last night's dinner. Italian mashed potatoes (made with olive oil, two kinds of cheese, and lots of pepper), grilled chicken, and homemade spinach pesto. Heaven! I went into a serious food coma that last through all of Saturday Night Live. Ahhh... Sean acquired two new kitchen gadgets this week, so he felt like cooking. One was a potato ricer (all the better to ake creamy mashed potatoes with) and the other was a Wusthof Cordon Bleu paring knife, which is his favorite new toy. He should get together with Ingo - they can geek out over kitchen tools.

We saw Fast Food Nation this weekend. It's based on Eric Schlosser's non-fiction expose of the fast food industry, mainly focused on meat plants and just how cow poop makes its way into one's hamburger. Yuck. I haven't eaten at McDonald's in over four years, and let's just say I'm never eating at any of those places EVER AGAIN! I don't think they really needed to show how a cow gets from being alive to being a hamburger patty (moment of death included), but damn if it didn't do the job. Gross!

I'm sitting in my eighth floor hotel room, looking southeast over Washington. I don't see it from this vanage point often, and it looks beautiful. I wish I could include a pic of it here. There's not a cloud in the sky and the weather is gorgeous, and seeing the lights of the city, the Washington monument, the Capitol dome, the Kennedy Center, all the way down the Potomac and over to Maryland... it makes me think how beautiful this country must have been in its native stage about 400 years ago. Too bad someone had to find it and fuck it up...

My dad's visit is imminent - he'll be here on April 5. I hope he's looking forward to it... I have a long shopping list for him!!! :-)

Alright... good night, folks. Catch you later.

Halfway There!

Well, hotel week #1 is halfway done at this point. Today is the easy day, when we give free time ater 2:30 pm. As is often the case with these weeks, I'm easily bored, so I make sure to bring a good number of Netflix movies to watch. So far this week, I've watched The African Queen and 12 Angry Men, and attempted to watch Saw III but the disc was busted. I even braved my very first DC Metrobus ride in order to go the movies this afternoon. I saw 300, which is visually stunning but not much else. Even those who can appreciate a beautifully sculpted male body can get a bit tired of an endless parade of unnaturally large and developed abs. Ugh. I'm glad I wasn't munching on popcorn during the movie; all those hardbodies would have sent me on a major guilt trip!

Miraculously enough, I was also able to squeeze in a little actual culture this week! Sean, Peter and I saw Richard III at the Shakespeare Theater last night. It was fantastic! The actor Geraint Wyn Davies, who played Richard of Gloucester, was mesmerizing. The part, as written, is a Godsend for any stage actor, but this man was unbelievably good. We took Peter out to dinner at Jaleo beforehand, since it was his birthday. Now that I've gone to the theater once, I feel a need to go again. I'll have to check what's playing...

I'm waiting for Sean as I write this - he's driving up to the hotel and we're going to get some little dinner and relax in the hotel room (which includes a personal jacuzzi - hello!!!).

Funny but true: The hotel is across the street from the Russian Embassy. Whatever signals - jamming, spying, whatever - they are sending out are so strong that I am unable to talk on my cell phone here without losing reception. Wasn't the Cold War over??!

OK, into the shower now. Hasta luego!

Wrath of Blogger

Well, I had a post written on Wednesday, but Blogger has been acting up and hasn't let me post anything until now. So my earlier post about how it was snowing and how it was weird to see the white stuff this late here in DC... well, that's just kind of dated now, huh?

Anyways, it was a busy week. I even made it to the movies... twice! Sean and I started the week by seeing Breach, about FBI agent/evil spy Robert Hanssen. It's a perfectly decent thriller (even though it has Ryan Phillipe) made even more fun by seeing how the filmmakers manage to get Washington facts wrong (the movie was shot almost exclusively here in town). Route 50 becomes Wilson Boulevard, Federal Triangle metro station becomes Archives metro station, etc. Us DC folks get a good laugh out of this kind of stuff.

Last night, I saw Zodiac. It's the new David Fincher movie about the 1970s killer in San Francisco. I've always thought it was a fascinating story to begin with, and getting Fincher's take on it was great. He's an excellent director with a real eye for detail. It was like being transported back 30 years. It has a cast of thousands, led by Robert Downey Jr (stretching as a substance-abusing reporter), Mark Ruffalo (as a San Fran cop who was the model for Dirty Harry), and gayboy Jake Gyllenhaal as an increasingly neurotic cartoonist who becomes obsessed with the case. It's hard to believe that Zodiac was never caught, although the movie makes a convincing case as to the identity of the killer.

Sean and I also saw Hafid (The Sea), an Icelandic movie that's only one of three available on Netflix. In true Icelandic fashion, it's incredibly depressing, but was both agreed it was not boring.

I move into a hotel on Sunday, to supervise the first of three weeks with my old people. Sigh. I'll have to convince myself to look at this like a vacation. At least it's in a new part of town, close to everything, so I'll be able to walk to Whole Foods, nice restaurants, and even go to the movies during long breaks, if I so please. So don't try me at work next week - I won't be there! I'll have Internet access, so I'll be easily reachable.

Only 10 weeks until our Icelandic trip...

Comfy/Loungy

Ahhh.. the end of a long Friday. I had a program today, which means getting up at 5:30 and crawling, barely conscious, into the shower. I got home at 6:15. Shower, clean apartment, order Chinese food! :) Now I'm just lounging on the couch, waiting for my nice delivery man to bring dinner.

By the way, how can it be March already? Didn't we just have Christmas?

Not much going on here. I watched a classic this week - The Bridge on the River Kwai. I mostly enjoyed it, although someone could have suggested to David Lean that 3-hour movies can get a bit tiring. For the weekend, I have a German comedy, and Icelandic family drama (The Sea/Hafid), and the only Coen brothers movie I have yet to see - The Man Who Wasn't There. Speaking of movies, I really want to go see David Fincher's new movie, Zodiac. Maybe that will be the movie that finally gets me back into a theater. The only film I've actually paid to see this year was Pan's Labyrinth.

OK, my food is here. I have to go dive into a plate of Szechuan Chicken and Crab Rangoon!!!