Being the archetypal hunter/gatherer that he is, Max dashed out first thing this morning to get us bagels from our local tiny independent coffeehouse, Cosi and we ate them in bed, watching 'Ella Enchanted' on cable, which is an odd film.
I then thought I'd just rest my eyes - the bed was soooo soft and cosy and we had nowhere to be.
The next time I woke up, I was slightly bemused to find it was 4.30pm.
Max had watched a further two (count 'em!) slightly odd films on cable - 'The Perfect Man', starring Hilary Duff and 'The Prince & Me' - a charming story of mismatched romance when Julia Stiles falls for a Danish prince undercover at a US college. From what I can gather, he then spent the day checking out Julia Stiles on imdb.com and catching up with the US political blogs while I slept the day away.
I was a bit confused when I woke up, and suspected that the NyQuil cough mixture might've had something to do with my sleepiness, as I really hadn't felt much in the way of jetlag since we arrived. Anyways, there was time to do little else other than get ready to go out to Laura's housecooling party, where we would get the first glimpse of our new apartment!
Having located various items of party clothes spread across several suitcases, we headed up to Adams Morgan on foot. It seems a really lovely area - all wide, tree-lined streets and houses that look a bit like those in Park Slope in Brooklyn. We walked down the main drag to a massive, three-storey Mexican where Max had a Mexican feast last time he was in town, but it was full. So we tried to go next door to the Peruvian, but it was also rammed. Not much fancying the Malay place across the street, we ended up at a Thai restaurant just round the corner from our apartment-to-be. This is all by way of saying that there is many a fine restaurant near our new place and we were very excited. The Thai was deliiiiicious, though we are starting to suffer Huge US Servings Fatigue a bit.
It was a nice warm evening, with lots of people out on the street and, as we walked to the apartment after supper, we passed a Belgian bar and a fancy off licence, too. So we're very excited about moving to the area and think we will do well there.
The apartment is in a building that used to be the Chinese Embassy and the entrance hall is big and fancy, with a sweeping staircase. When we got into the flat itself, I asked Laura whether we should take our shoes off, as the carpets are light and the entrance hall is an enormous parquet floored affair. But she said not to bother, almost as one who's leaving soon and given up caring! Anyway, the flat itself seemed fantastic, though I didn't want to poke around too much, as I'm aware Laura is sad to be leaving and didn't want to appear all grabby and replace-y. But off the vast entrance hall is a teeny not very modern kitchen (but with a dishwasher - yeay!), two en-suite double bedrooms (the main bedroom apparently has a walk-in wardrobe! Sweet!) and a lovely, dual-aspect sitting room with two sofas, a dining table and six chairs. Photos will of COURSE follow when we've moved in.
The party itself was ok, but everyone was a little bit as I expected - kind of earnest and keen to talk politics. Though to be fair, they were all political journalists and I'm sure that, had I launched into a discussion about whether 'Heroes' is better than 'Entourage', I could've found someone who was interested. Or maybe not. Anyway, we met some nice enough people, almost all of whom mentioned how unbearable muggy the summers get here, so those two airy, loose-fitting dresses I bought in Gap yesterday will come in very handy!
Still feeling a little snoozy, post NyQuil, I was pleased to head back to the hotel, again on foot (it's nice how everything's walkable). Again, the streets were really quiet, especially for a Saturday night. Keen to have something of a Sunday, I chose not to take any NyQuil...
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