March On

The last couple weeks have been a blur of up and down emotions. Meeting Steve and Julia for Latin American food; visiting the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef exhibition at the National Museum of Natural History, trying to get my Mac fixed (success!), planning (then canceling) a trip to NYC with Sarah and Chad, drinking iced coffee at Dean & Deluca on Sundays and visiting the Canadian Embassy to drop off my EI stuff.

The highlight for Adam (and even for me) was attending two March Madness games last weekend! We took the metro (packed with other NCAA fans) to the Verizon Centre and even before the escalator to ground level reached the top, we heard the sounds of a New Orleans-style six-piece black male street band, pumping away to a huge, grinning crowd of bad dancers, drunk ticket holders, scalpers, stoners, little kids, rough guys in U of Pitt sweatshirts and a couple of really excited Canadian ex-pats.

Oh yeah, the games were fun too. The first was a big upset with an incredible finish (email Adam if you want a detailed play-by-play), and we cheerfully tucked into the driest, most inedible pretzel I've ever encountered, washed down with a bottle of cold Diet Coke. Yeah, we brought our own snacks too -- peanut butter granola bars, Babybelle cheese, dried cherries and Marcona almonds.

We also visited a Dutch farmer's market, which I'm writing about for Enroute online. What a crazy place! Tucked away in a suburban Maryland strip mall, the market draws a surprisingly eclectic mix of people, considering the incredible segregation we've witnessed in most of DC so far. Too much delicious food to mention it all. Just dream about pumpkin roll with cream cheese filling; flaky buttery pretzel rods stuffed with sausage, egg and American cheese; hot and sweet pickles; and home soured kraut. And yeah, the Amish guys running the stalls wore straight-up bowl cuts and long beards.

Weekend of major fun coming up! But in the meantime, I have work to do!