Confederacy of a Dunce - Capital adventures

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

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There's been another temporary outage at Confederacy of a Dunce, this time because we took a long weekend in Washington DC. I figured I'd be able to write a little bit while we were there, but you know how that goes. We chose to spend a few extra quid to take Virgin Atlantic in order to take advantage of their impressive in-flight entertainment. You might laugh, but despite our desperate viewing from start to finish of both flights, we didn't even come close to watching everything that interested us. We did manage to get through Syriana, Junebug, The Constant Gardener and Murderball (three of which were disappointing), plus highlights of the Japanese program "Masquerade" (perhaps best known for the "Matrix Ping-pong" video clip that circulated widely a while back), a Chinese action game show "Challenge 321". Mrs. Dunce also saw Transamerica while I chose lowbrow comedy (Green Wing, Arrested Development, the American version of The Office). Of course this meant we didn't sleep on the return flight; thanks to that yesterday was a complete blur, and our 8:30 bedtime took forever to arrive.

We were graciously hosted by Mrs. Dunce's oldest friend who took time out of her busy schedule at the Peace Corps (especially busy as she has some responsibilities for East Timor) to hang out with us. And her boyfriend (although I heard her use the F-word on one occasion) who drives their apartment's only blog. Our main purpose for attending was the wedding of another of Mrs. Dunce's old friends, but we also managed to cruise through an impressive assortment of activities in our short visit.

I have to start with food, mainly because I'm a serial eater. Bring on those American-sized portions, that's my cry. We started on the eve of Cinco de Mayo at a Mexican restaurant; even though we now have a decent option in London, good Mexican is our first choice elsewhere as well. Mrs. Dunce and I are so closely tuned to each other that we ordered exactly the same thing, gigantic crab enchilada and a margarita (rocks, salt). Um about those American-sized portions, maybe not such a great idea for someone who's just eaten an airplane breakfast. The next morning we got in the car and headed for Bethesda, where Matuba Sushi awaited us. They offer a lunch special: all the sushi you can eat for a mere $11.95. From the "only rotary sushi bar in the DC metro area". Needless to say this was problematic for anyone lacking in willpower (that's me); the only solution was an afternoon nap. After which we headed out to the home of another of Mrs. Dunce's old friends (the capital area seems to be crawling with them) where we somehow managed to eat yet again.

It's starting to sound like our visit was only about eating, but we did some museuming as well. Like the new National Museum of the American Indian. I liked the approach of their displays, taking a central theme (e.g. history, cosmology, contemporary identity) and putting together parallel displays on that theme from different tribes from different parts of the Americas. And, (whoops, here I go back to food again) the museum restaurant was truly amazing. Our hosts had already mentioned how good it was, but I had no idea. The cafe is called Mitsitam, which means "Let's eat" in a local Indian language, and features a whole range of indigenous foods, grouped geographically (Northern Woodlands, South American, Meso America, the Great Plains, and the Northwest Coast and Columbia Plateau). I had an excellent black bean tamale; Mrs. Dunce a crab salad sandwich. Other choices included buffalo, venison, salmon, plus a whole variety of side dishes also generally representing the various locales (here are a couple of reviews).

Well, I've come to the end of my allotted time today, and I haven't even mentioned baseball or street numbering/naming conventions. I guess I need to threaten another DC entry next time.

consume | travel

Wednesday, May 10, 2006 4:08:03 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)