Washington Monument

I have been riding around Arlington (via the Red Route) every second day lately. Most days have been around 20C (except the weekend Bruce was here, that was a cold weekend). Yesterday it was extra hot (27C) so I stopped a few times along my ride and took some pictures.

Here are some rowers. Go Hoyas?

Here is the Washington Monument (aerial). It is 169m tall, and 3 years after its completion, was surpassed as the world's tallest structure by the Eiffel tower, 155m taller. The dome just to the left of the monument is the Jefferson Memorial (aerial). And the river is the Potomac.

I have not been to see any of the landmarks in town yet, though you can get quite close to the Washington Monument by driving by it. I haven't even seen the White house yet because the area is completely closed to car traffic for security reasons. You actually have to get out and walk to that building. While I have not seen the building yet, I know someone that has had a specil tour of its insides. You know who you are!


The trail passes by the airport, and gets really close to the end of the runway. Its busy, you can see an airplane landing behind this one taking off.

Keeping busy

In the last week we have had a chance to hang out with Bruce, who was in town for a few days (sorry, no photos to post). Saw the watergate hotel (again no photos). Looked at a bunch of apartments. Met some Canadians. Hello friendy Canadians! Saturday we went 'cross border shopping' without leaving Virginia at the Leesburg outlet mall. Only a half hour from DC.

The Red Route

Arlington has many bike routes, one goes around the city. It follows a creek to the south (route) and the Potomac River to the east and north. It is 30km long on rolling terrain and pretty nice, but it is paved nicely for rollerblading and alongside freeways on the portions not following the creek.


Along this route I came across some bamboo stands. I was not expecting this. Looks like they go through and cut the bamboo down regularly.








The bulbs are blooming around town. Since we no longer have house plants to take pictures of..... here are some plants in zoo like situations (not quite natural, but we will pretend). Our Ottawa house plants had to be euthenized, one or two were put up for adoption.

Whole Foods has emu eggs

Found a great food store chain here called Whole Foods. Only three stores in Canada, but over a hundred in the states. They carry mostly organic and local foods and it costs no more than all the other stores. The cheapest apples were grown right here in Virginia, and they are organic, and cheaper than the Safeway/Harris Teeter/etc. Bonus: they sell three types of Chimay and Duvel in the 750ml bottle size! ...and... Emu eggs, $20 each. I can't imagine eating one of these, when you shake it the egg is so heavy the yolk inside the shell has enough inertia that you really feel it sloshing around.

Whoops,

we brought some snow with us. It seemed odd that schools in the area were closed for a now day even before the snow began to fall. But by the end of the day there was a respectful volume of snow on the ground for a city that does not get much. The area received about a third its annual snowfall yesterday.

Funny thing: went to the stores and the parking lot was full of cars with their windshield wipers pointing upwards. After seeing the same thing at the next parking lot I guessed they feel it necessary to protect their wipers when it is around zero and it snows.

Upcoming shows

Easily Amused (Keith's band):

West End Cultural Center
Season For Non-Violence Show
Winnipeg, MB
8:00pm
with Sheena Grobb (we saw her warm up for Keith January a year ago) and Jodi King

and

Wednesday April 4
Burton Cummings Theatre
with Eva Avila (Canadian Idol?)
Winnipeg, MB
8:00 pm

Alexandria, Virginia

Saturday, our first day in DC, was spent taking part in a guided tour by the woman who switched apartments with us. The drove us by some local shopping (like Target and Safeway) then to the National Mall (Capital monument and Congress, etc.), and a few other landmarks she felt would be helpful.

Sunday we drove to Alexandria Virginia. It is only about 10km from our place in Arlington. This was part of DC until ~1846. At its heart is an old town. The highlight is the old torpedo factory, now an art gallery.

It was about 15C (60F) our first day here which made us excited. Now it is around 0C (32F) again. Looks like it will be a while before it improves again.

1 step backwards

I have to back up a step here and give some background. A few weeks ago we decided to move to Washington DC. When showing our apartment, the first person to view it happened to have a place in Washington that she was subletting for a few months. So we essentially switched apartments. She bought a lot of our furniture and she left her furniture for us to use. Now we have a little time to find a place and acquire more furniture.

This past weekend we both drove down in our cars loaded with our stuff.... we came here to live, she came here to pick up her stuff and drive back to Ottawa at the end of the weekend. Though we had to leave some stuff behind in Ottawa we got most of our stuff here. We will just have to return to Ottawa, maybe around Easter, to get those last couple boxes. Mostly winter and apartment decorating stuff anyway.


We have been made to feel very welcome here.

I-81 - Pennsylvania

The drive through Pennsylvania was very nice and a large part of the highway was through forested hills. A recommended drive.

1-way road trip

We packed and hit the road. Destination Washington... D.C. Time to update the side bar links.




We spent a night in Syracuse. We arrived there just as the freezing rain was begining. The following morning it was raining heavily, clearing away any ice that accumulated the night before. By Pennsylvania the weather was nice and it was smooth sailing the rest most of the way.



At least in Brussels numbers meant the same thing everywhere you went. No conversions necessary. Once we got to the border we have had to convert every number we see for it to mean something against the metric and Canadian money systems. All we need to know is 70F is comfortable, and gas is just cheaper.

feul
USD $/gal to CAD $/L (and vice versa - change dollar values for current price exchanges)
fahrenheit
C to F (and vice versa)
miles
km to miles ( and vice versa)
speed
km/hr to miles/hr