- I have 32 channels available on my hotel room tv but there's nothing to watch.
NASCAR and Indy oval racing is boring and very hard to follow.
It is currently 'March Madness' here which is code for the playoffs for the basketball series. Yet to work out who the teams are or why anyone cares!
Petrol is up 6c this week to $2.61 a gallon (think a US gallon is around 4 litres??)
Many of the cars getting around the city are more mid sized rather than the SUVs that we're led to believe everyone here drives. Although don't think I've seen a F250 yet, instead they are all F350s and fairly common!
Nissan is apparently pronounced Neesson. Well on one of the ads anyway!
Scone rhymes with phone. The blueberry scones at Starbucks are worth getting the pronunciation right for!
My mental arithmetic is improving as I constantly convert Fahrenheit to Celsius so I've got some idea of what the temperature outside is. Max in early days I was here was down around 8 degrees, less with wind chill. Forecast for Tuesday is 75 deg (or 27 Celsius)! Was about 20 today though felt warmer - glorious sunny spring day. Contrasts with the cold foggy day we had yesterday.
Walked down to the Tidal Pool yesterday. Coming into cherry blossom festival here but think I'm about a week too early. Have to wait until next year! Looks spectacular from the postcards etc I've seen.
Intended doing a Segway tour today but was closed when I got there. Phone message indicates they stopped sometime in 2006 and start again on 1 April. Found that their opposition actually has an office about 3 doors around corner from where I'm staying! Just hadn't walked there before today and their official tour starting place is miles away. It is $65 for a 2.5 hour tour around the highlights of DC but it was just for the chance of having a go on one that I was interested in it for!
Shop names in Washington tend to be on the top of awnings above the windows. So hard to see what shop you are standing in front of. The shop windows are also darkly tinted so hard to see what's inside or even if they are open. Many shops only have one smaller entrance working with the larger 'main' doors closed permanently. Not sure if this is due to security reasons or what.
Many of the 'shops' where I'm staying in downtown are takeaways, cafes and restaurants. And yes, there are at least three Starbucks within a couple of blocks of both my hotel and my work!
Doesn't seem to be a great range of shops in DC but I think that's more a reflection of the area covered by the local DC telephone book. For example there isn't a big toy store here in DC but suspect there would be one over the border in Maryland or Virginia. Kind of means you need to rely on the Internet more to find places. In fact most of the big shopping centres are over the border.
Lots of homeless living out on the streets / sleeping on the park benches. One lady just down from the hotel has converted her bench with plastic tarps into a larger domicile. Saw her checking her mobile phone yesterday, can't even guess how she charges it / pays for it - or at least I guessed it was her phone …
I've been wandering around this area, the Metro and out to Bethesda (where we want to live in Maryland) from early morning until about 10pm. Felt totally safe.
Prince George County (known as PGC and is actually more like a town or suburb despite the name) is the problematic crime / drug area where the black on black crime is pretty bad. Suspect it makes the news every Sunday for what happened there on the Saturday night.
While PGC is nowhere near any of the areas we could possibly be living (even a totally different Metro line) it is also the area where Wal-Mart has opened its first store 'within the Beltway'.
The Beltway is a highway that circles the greater DC area. Used for things like my rental allowance decreases if I rent outside the Beltway. Can't see any reason why we would even contemplate going that far out - it is basically outside all the main residential areas. In comparison to Canberra, some of the outlying areas of Gungahlin / Tuggeranong / Hall / Bungendore would be 'outside the Beltway'.
I love the Bethesda / Chevy Chase area where we want to live! Wouldn't be much you couldn't buy within the area. Has supermarkets, sports gear shop, restaurants, Barnes & Noble, gift shops, Apple shop, Hyatt hotel, B&O, etc, etc - oh, and the Metro station of course.
The streets where the houses are where we want to live kind of translates as living in Red Hill within walking distance of Manuka for those who know their Canberra geography. Shopping area probably a bit bigger than Manuka but much more diverse.
Haven't found a house to rent yet. Made an offer on Friday night but they already had an offer over their asking price which was also over my allowance rate! There is another house in the area I'm tempted to make an offer on. It currently is gutted and has to have new wooden floors, kitchens and bathrooms installed. Thought would be to push Rob to get it finished by time we get back in late April. Suspect he needs more time than this and haven't moved on it yet as it is a bit on the small side, although we could live there quite comfortably.
Style of house here is nothing like you would see in Australia. Leaving aside the designs, double glazing is common, as is both ducted heating and air conditioning. Many of the homes I've looked at have four stories. Basically living areas on the entry level, upstairs to bedrooms, then upstairs again to a converted roof space / attic (many quite large). The downstairs basement is often 'converted' and 'fully fitted' into a number of rooms - often with kitchen / bathroom etc to provide accommodation for an au pair or similar. Many houses would have a total of 4 bathrooms and 2 half bathrooms! Other than consumerism gone mad, I'm not quite sure why! although the land value of most homes I've looked at would be at least US$1 million.
House hunting is good entertainment. From the two story extension with raised area for the grand piano, mezzanine viewing area and heaps of storage for music etc in one to the 1927 home with the living area fully log lined and looking just like a mountain cabin! Some of the original art deco pieces like the basins would be collectable today.
Most of the other Aussies here live in Virginia. Tends to be cheaper there but have to be more dependant upon a car. Looked at a few houses there today. Could be tempted by one (which seems to have been taken off the market at the moment) but would be difficult to live there without a car to get groceries / get kids to school. Made me more inclined to push harder or compromise more to get a house in Maryland. Bethesda has the benefit of shops, school and Metro all potentially in walking distance, something I haven't found anywhere else.
Although I'm saying Maryland, now understand that we can live in DC in the Chevy Chase area that extends down from Maryland. Big issue is around the quality of the schools. Embassy tells me that the Elementary Schools are ok in that area of DC (ie comparable to Australia). Public school system here is quite strict that you have to go to the school that you live in the feeder zone for. Have to pay exorbitant amount otherwise so important to choose a house in an area that Olivia and Kieren can go to a good school in. So that gives me another area to look in and there's one house there I'll check out in next couple of days.
This area of DC is also where the serviced apartments are that the Embassy would book for us if we haven't got a house lined up when we come back in late April.
Have also found that many of the Elementary Schools in areas I'm looking offer pre-kindergarten. Kieren would be old enough to go to these when their new school year starts in late August. Would be good if they were both going to the same school but see what happens.
Work seems fine. Have an out of hours mill key etc so can get in whenever I want. Went in this afternoon to check my email and send a 'what's not working' email about my laptop errors. My office has a window but only looks over the access way between our building and the next. Think I'll enjoy working with the people there.
Just getting used again to how polite Americans are. Having trouble getting them to tell me if I mispronounce something or do something wrong as that would be impolite. Exception is if you invade someone's personal space or display discourtesy. (Not that I have of course!) So there's lots of horn honking if someone's holding up traffic that they think they shouldn't be. One of my friends accidently bumped a lady while looking on shop shelves. Next thing the lady was on the phone yelling at someone about how rude people were here and how she would be glad to be home!
Big problem is the 14 hour time difference to east Australia. I've arranged to talk to one of our computer guys at 8am Tuesday which is 6pm Monday here. Am looking for our home to have potential to have a good study setup as I suspect I'll have a few phone hook-ups in the evening here. While others have tended to stay back at work late, will try to do this from home in the evening when I can.
Frustration at our access to our work computer systems remains. While they blame it on the fact that I'm the only one working overseas so I'm a bit of a test case, I think the problem is more that the laptop is so tied down with security that it just doesn't work as intended. At least I'll be back for a month before we all head off over here to make some noise about getting that sorted out.
Malcolm
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