At first I didn't think I'd like Washington DC. I didn't have high expectations to begin with and my first night here seemed to confirm the worst: The HI hostel I stayed in, is in an area that is desolate at night - there were only dark, unlit officeblocks around and it felt quite dodgy. But then I moved to another area called Adams Morgan. And that's when my day- and my nightlife started to improve.

Adams Morgan is a really cool area with tons of restaurants and bars and small clubs. And most of them are even quite reasonably priced so that you can go out without spending an absolute fortune. Unfortunately the hostel (DC International Student Hostel) I moved to is quite dump. But the HI wasn't much better, so at least I improved where I'm staying even though not neccessarily how. And besides I found that you tend to meet the cooler people in the shittier hostels. I don't know why that is so, but maybe it's simply that all those free communal activities like "What do you see in this Bedstain?", "Kill the Cockroach" or "Who can name that smell?" foster a sense of community that you just don't get at squeekily clean hostels. I even met two people from Guatemala who gave me loads of advice on their country. Cool.

Singles Night and Free Sushi

On my 1st night in Adams Morgan I noticed that the local free citypaper here in DC is gonna start a "matches" column and will host a sushi-tasting and singles party to celebrate the launch. Hmmmmm - Free Food! And the best thing was thatthe restaurant where they would have it was just a two minuts walk from my hostel. So of course I went (FREE Food!!!!!) and I had a really good night. I always imagined Single Party to be quite stiff and full of forced happyness. But the people I met there were pretty cool (and I got a free t-shirt in addition to the food!). As a matter of fact I went out with one girl, Lindsay, after the party was over and saw the presidential debate with her on the day after, over at her house. Btw: I think that Kerry clearly won that! And tonight a friend of Lindsay will host a fundraising party which should be cool as well.

And yesterday I met with Sonia, a friend of Tamar, who is living in Baltimore and had a very, very good night as well. She and her friends are just great and we danced and drank until four in the the morning. If you ever are in DC, take a look at the "Lucky Bar" - I really liked that place. Btw: I managed to get in touch with her through a website called Friendster, which I think is really cool top get to know people. Basically what the website does is, it "maps" your friends and their friends, giving you a visual and searchable version of the famous "degrees of separation". So what I did when I came to DC was, I searched for people in the DC-area within two degrees of separation and that's how I found Sonia. Then I just mailed her and introduced myself as a friend of Tamar and that was it! Really cool, if you think about it!

I also managed to meet Steve, a guy with whom I had played Diplomacy over the internet for a few years. It's really cool if you can finally put a face and a voice to someone you have been exchanging emails with and with whom you had been plotting against other players - and who stabbed you into the back :-). But he paid for the beer, so that backstab was quickly forgotten ....

Museums, museums, museums

But enough about my social life (though I think it currently is pretty cool). After all, there is so much more to do in DC! For one thing, there are all the monuments, Arlington Cemetary, the Capitol and the White House. And then there are all those cool museums. And nearly all of are free. So I went to the "Spy Museum" (not free, 13 USD, but very cool, very engaging and very interactive), the brand new "American Indian Museum" (very beautiful and well done), the "National Geographics Explorer Hall" (stunning photos) and the famous "Air & Space Museum". The latter was really cool - I mean, standing in front of all those rockets and capsules and space-stuff and realizing how bloody big most of it is is really cool. But I was also a bit disappointed. For one thing, they don't seem to update their exhibits very often - one exhibit showed an airplane that "is currently (1989) tested by the US Airforce". I mean, come on! That was 15 years ago! The other thing I didn't like that much was that they were so focused on cool technology and things to look at but didn't talk about what that technology did. I mean, they had full sized Minuteman ICBMs, SS-20s and Pershin IIs there, but didn't bother explaining the destructive power these things processed. Telling me so-and-so many pounds of thrust and so-and-so many kilotons of payload doesn't really mean much to me or probably anyone else. Even the Spy Museum had more information of nuclear weapons than the Air & Space Museum. And they even had the actual rockets.

So, well, all in all I really enjoyed Washington. More so than I thought I would. But of course - as always - it comes down to the people you meet. And the people I met here were great. Tomorrow I'm off to New Orleans - the Big Easy!

On the web:
DC International Student Hostel
Friendster
The Diplomactic Pouch
The Smithsonian (information on most museums in DC)
The Spy Museum