Washington

I've been telling myself for a while that I'll get back into posting to this blog.  So here I go, trying again.  This year, to date, has been a mix of big challenges with some very nice things in between.  I guess that is the experience of life compressed into the last 10 months.  After a really rough period at the end of last year and beginning of this year, I've had some travels that have really given me that mental rest that I so desperately needed.  While I'm not out of my mourning phase, I feel like things are starting to right themselves again.  Things will never be the same, as they never will be with big loss, but a new normal is on the horizon.

In addition to a lot of upheaval, I had one of those milestone birthdays that is an upheaval in itself!  I still feel like I'm 30ish, not my real age which I'm not even admitting to myself, let alone my blog!  So in between bad things, we went for a very nice trip to Washington DC.  It is a long drive from Toronto but not unreasonable so we set out.  I loved Washington.  As a Canadian, we can't help but be exposed to US history, politics, pop culture and so on.  So most of the sites in the city were "familiar".  We spent our 3 days there walking, walking and walking.  All along the mall (my favourite spot was the arboretum but I also recommend the Museum of the American Indian and its cafe for lunch), to dinner at Restaurant Nora (a delicious restaurant, conveniently located near Looped Yarn Works, a very nice yarn store where I managed to spend a bit of money, quelle surprise).  All of the war memorials were moving and my favourite presidential monument was the FDR Memorial.  Beautiful and not seemly well known based on the limited number of people there.

At one point on day 2, we rented bikes from the bike share (manly because my feet were killing me and I whined until we rented bikes).  And wouldn't you know it, my bike was a lemon.  I ride my bike all the time and this piece of less-than-stellar engineering made me look like a rookie.  The gears wouldn't change without a good amount of persuasion and the steering was suspect.  I'm not sure how much of the issue was the need for bike repair and how much was the part where I'm used to a very nice road bike … I'm blaming the bike but I guess you also get what you pay for.  We rode from just outside the Capitol,  through the parts of Arlington Cemetery that you were allowed to ride bikes (which was not very much) to Georgetown where, after a couple of tries to find an empty rack, I said good riddance and got back on foot.  I really liked Georgetown but, on a Saturday, so does everyone.  There was a bakery I was hoping to try but the line up out the door dissuaded me.  I considered that to be a positive thing in the end.  Given the other gastronomical delights we experienced while we were there, baked goods, no matter how good, were not really necessary.

On another portion of our DC hike, walking back to our hotel from the mall, we happened upon the Canadian embassy.  No matter where I roam, it is always nice to see a bit of Canada.