Another day in DC, another early wakeup call from Stompy (6.30am! Thanks!) and more wandering around extremely hot and sunny blossom-lined streets. It's a tough life.
This morning, I went on an explore of U Street, which is the street
our road turns into when you cross 18th St (I love cities based on grids!) - the place with all the restaurants on it. I had no idea I'd be exploring U Street - I thought I was just following the advice of googlemaps to find a supermarket closer than Safeway, cos I wanted my breakfast. But I ended up having an adventure along what I now find out was known in the 30s as 'Black Broadway', where Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole hung out. It was also destroyed in the '68 riots and it took 3 days to put out fires there, apparently.
I discovered many nice restaurants and lots of good looking shops in tenement houses and once more got very excited about our neighbourhood and all the possibilities on our doorstep. I also found the supermarket, which was a good result. I'm really enjoying this ad hoc exploring; setting out to go somewhere and finding myself in a whole new neighbourhood, dreamily discovering new things in the sunshine. I feel like Max's representative, like I have to go exploring and report back to him. Much like Sir Francis Drake and Elizabeth, except Maxy's teeth aren't made from wood.
I got home, all excited about telling Max all about my trip, only to pick up an answerphone message from him, saying he's gone to the White House, to get voxpops and photos of the thousands of people who'd turned out for the Pope! I felt that somewhat trumped my U Street exploits. The whole voxpopping and photography side of Max's new job is the bit he's been most nervous about, and our plan was always that I should help him out the first few times, until he was used to it. But thanks to living like someone in the 80s, and having no mobile, I had no idea what was going on and therefore missed the chance to join him.
I met up with Laura - Max's predecessor - and Max for lunch and it turned out that Max totally aced the whole voxpops thing and really enjoyed it, much to his surprise (you should be able to see Max's resultant piece here, if you scroll down to the pic of the grumpy looking girl and click on 'In Pictures'). It was of no surprise to me and very in-keeping with Max's growing confidence and kickass-ness at his job as this week goes on. Every day, he's been coming home happier and more confident and he's really acing things at the Bureau, which is such a weight off his shoulders, after all this buildup to him taking on such an important job.
It was nice to see Laura again and very handy, because I was armed with lots of questions about the flat that she was able to answer. I'm still frankly terrified of the toploader washing machine, but at least I know how to let people in the front door now and that there's nothing to be done about Stompy.
One of my questions concerned the apparent dearth of household-y shops, to which Laura had but one answer: Target.
I've heard much of Target (or Tarjet, as fans of Primani would call it), but never been to one. I can now safely say that I have been Targeted. I hopped on the metro up to Columbia Heights, a neighbourhood to the north of where we live that's meant to be really nice. It is not really nice. But there is an enormous mall that houses just four extremely large shops. One of these is Bath, Bed & Beyond and the other is Target.
I pride myself on being like a kid in a candy shop when let loose in an enormous shop of very cheap tat, much to the frustration of Max, who has to point out we don't actually *need* whatever cheap-but-ingenious thing it is I've just picked up. So imagine how excited I was to be unsupervised! Unfortunately Bath, Bed & Beyond almost reduced me to a panic attack, so huge is it and so much choice is there within. Floor to ceiling stuff like handwhisks and fans and towels and photo frames and cutlery and whicker baskets and much, much more. What should've been a massive candy store became a scary warehouse o' doom, with kitchenware staring down at me from very high shelves, crowding in on me like one of those weird psychedelic bits in the middle of 'Dumbo', insisting on being bought.
I didn't like it.
So I skipped across the way to Target. Target had just as much stuff in it, but somehow was less scary. I had only gone there for some hangers and a four-way adaptor, so didn't bother with a basket, much less a trolley. However, when I found myself staggering around with two cushions, some wrapping paper and a big packet of loo roll, I thought the time had probably come to get a trolley. And then there was no stopping me!
Having hit the motherload of face cloths (so that's where they are!), but been unable to find any duvet covers (my new mission), I took my overloaded trolley to the cash desk. It was only at this point that I registered that I was on public transport and, having spent a little more than might be expected when picking up hangers and a four-way, I thought it wouldn't be right to get a taxi.
So, with the security guard giving me, 'you're a loony' looks, I struggled out into the blazing heat with three enormous, binbag sized bags of cushions, hangers, handwhisks, mattress covers, paper lanterns, bronzing moisturiser and quite a lot more. The bags were just bigger than the distance from my hand to the floor, so my journey home was spent in an awkward permanently-flexed position usually seen only in the gym. I made it onto the metro, only to find that the stop I previously thought was super-close to our apartment is in fact six long hot blocks away.
Determined, I set off, convinced I could do it. In the first two minutes of getting outside, I encountered three homeless people all asking for money and was mortified that, as I struggled along with my bags stuffed with useless things, I had to explain that I had no change.
I think I got two blocks before I gave up and jumped in a taxi. By now I was three blocks from home, so when the driver told me it'd be $8.50, I promptly jumped out again and made my way to the bus stop. I worry that I'm not really conveying just how hot it was, how heavy the bags were or how awkward they were to carry. Anyways, I was easily the least popular person on the crowded bus, when I galumphed on, didn't know how to work the ticket machine and then hit every single knee as I struggled along to a seat. Though I was excited to be venturing onto a new form of transport.
The lady opposite me had just met a friend and, when asked what she'd been up to, just said, 'riding the bus'. Perhaps I'll do that one day. Without my Target bags.
I finally made it back to the apartment, but only just. The gentle hill we live on had turned into a sheer rockface while I'd been shopping and I poured myself through the door. Within 5 mins of unpacking my purchases, everything looked like it'd been here all along, so didn't really do justice to my toils. But I do love my cushions.
I of course gave Max the tour of the increasingly homely-looking flat when he got home and he was suitably impressed (though I sense he doesn't love the cushions quite as much as I do). Again, I hadn't quite managed to get stuff in for supper, so we headed out to eat on 18th. We ended up in a Mexican & El Salvadorian restaurant just across from the faux-Elgin. The food was deliiiicious and enormous and extremely good value. I had a lethal cocktail called a Cuban Sunset, with vodka, tequila and rum in it, amongst other things. It was just what I needed after my hard day, though lifting it to my mouth became very difficult as my arms went on strike shortly after I finally put down the Target bags.
To walk off the disgusting amount of food, we explored our neighbourhood in the other direction, walking away from 18th & U Streets, and discovered a Safeway much closer to us and a 24-hour Rite Aid, that claims to be a pharmacy, but is enormous and sells clothes and stationery and washing detergent and hangers(!) and photo goods and many other things.
Max had had an even better day at work than the day before and confirmed that we'll be going to Pennsylvania this weekend. Because he can't drive, I'll be on chauffeur duty and hired a car for our 5-day trip for $200, which bodes well for our out-of-town adventures (so cheap!). We'll be in Harrisburg for Saturday to Monday, getting 'local colour' (voxpops and pics), then head to Philadelphia (or 'Killadelphia', as it has been called since the gun crime rate has soared) on Monday until Wednesday morning, so Max can pop some more voxes and then cover the Primary results from Obama's Tuesday night rally. Woo!
No comments:
Post a Comment