USA trip 2016 pt 1
Day 1 2/12/2016 Sydney - LAX - Washington DC
777-300ER. Flight mostly fine, apart from a stretch over the Intertropical Convergence Zone and Internatioal Date Line. Had a few panics, was very glad to have Arwin with me. Watched the movie Pride, which was really good.
LAX was not too hot, but very confusing. Got to our domestic gate just as boarding started. Phew. Not too sure how I feel about the great free-est country on Earth having all 10 of my fingerprints and a full body scan. Feels like unreasonable overkill. Meh.
40 hour day. Looooong day.
Slept on 2nd VA flight on A320, 5hrs.
Taxi from airport cost $70! Small cars here are Prius class, nothing like a Yaris here, though I did see a modern Mini Cooper.
DC pretty. Cold but not worse than expected. Hotel is very nice, the girl who checked us in was lovely, and found us a room with two full size beds and a view of the street. Customer service here really is a thing. As well as the usual restaurant, there's a Starbucks in the foyer. Given lack of decent tea facilities in the room, I'm very okay with this! :)
Dinner at District Taco, great student food! Mexican coke tastes like Australian knock-off coke. Guess it's the corn starch instead of sugar cane.
Another country that doesn't understand about dual flush toilets. Actually Asia was getting better on that front.
Bed is soft and warm, it's actually really lovely.
Tomorrow, bus at about 11 up to Philadelphia to see Arwin's cousin's family. Bit worried about leaving the hotel unattended for a couple of days, hopefully it'll be okay. This whole tipping culture thing is very confusing and strange.
Day 2 3/12/2016 DC - Philadelphia
Arwin got up and made a pilgrimage down to Starbucks and got me a got chocolate. I told him about American milk in the plane over and he made a conclusion I hadn't thought of - get cream in your hot chocolate. Although hot choc want in the menu they do make it and it tasted just fine, have had many many worse. Lesson: Americans can make milk drinks, just ask for cream :) so have to keep testing this theory :)
Bus to Philadelphia comfortable but demographically challenged. Depressing :(
Arwin's cousin “Joje” (Amar) picked us up from the bus station and drove us to their house outside Philadelphia. Met their three daughters (the elder two met him in India about 2 years ago), the youngest is about a year old. And their 6mo old puppy Buddy :)
Had delicious chole and dahl for lunch, then went to see Sargun’s basketball game at the local school. Sidak is playing Brain It On on Arwin's phone. Physics!
The girls list their matches. Basketball was very very white dominated. :-/
After we good home we had a yummy cuppa and Arwin showed the girls his VR headset. Then took the puppy Buddy for a quick walk, then joje, Arwin and I went to the local DFO. We don't really get tree brandnames thing, but it's good to have new shoes. Stopped by the supermarket on the way home, much better than I had expected, but again, demographic probably. Had more delicious homecooked Indian for for dinner, Arwin played with the girls and dog, then sleep time. Kids are very tiring but this is a fun change of scenery :)
Day 3 4/12/2016 - Pennsylvania
Body decided to be awake from 3 to 5am, so then when Arwin came to wake me at 9:15 to tell me everyone is up now I was incapable of being in that. Eventually surfaced at 10, had pancakes with Arwin and the girls, had shower, started building an indoor basketball game thing, stopped for parati (potato naan), played outside on the swings and trampoline. Then we went to a place called Merrymead Farm for locally made ice cream and to see some farm animals. They had lots of home cooking for sale too. Nice. Very quaint countryside area and township (Skippack). Hersh says there are Amish in the area, too.
Stopped by the shops on the way home, Ross, like a small Kmart, got some stuff for the kids and earmuffs for Arwin and a belt for me.
Played some basketball when we got home, it's very fun, two hoops and two people shooting at the same time side by side. I drew Arwin once and thrashed him once. Hersh beat Amar which was great seeing he's a coach! :) played a bit of indoor cricket.
Came upstairs, Arwin played with the kids, had spiced fish for what i thought was dinner but apparently to Indians it's not dinner unless it involves rice or naan, so that's appetiser for chicken and naan later!
My lesson: don't let curry liquid drip down your throat. IT BURNS!!! After dinner chatted on the couch and the girls played on Arwin's phone.
5/12/2016 PA back to DC
Slept poorly again. Only got about 5 hours sleep in the end. Bagels with philly cream cheese for breakfast :) Amar drove us in to the station and we caught the 8:09 train back to Jefferson, the station near the greyhound terminal. Made the bus with no problems, 40 min wait. The bus made a few stops in Delaware and Maryland before arriving in DC about 1pm. We went back to the hotel and dumped our stuff, and headed down to the food trucks that happened to be outside the hotel and grabbed some Indian for lunch. It was far too spicy for both of us so we didn't finish. I picked up my conference badge, we grabbed a hot choc each from the Starbucks downstairs, and caught a train to Smithsonian station in the National Mall.
We headed to the air and space museum, of course, which was fantastic. There wasn't time to read everything so Arwin will have to go back. But we saw lots of planes and rockets and things, and spent a pile of money at the shop on wonderful things :)
Back to the hotel, looked up dinner options, and decided on an Italian place a few blocks away in Chinatown. They cook the food fresh in front of you, and it's pretty good - Vapiano.
After this I need to dial in for one of my colleagues giving a talk at another conference and catch up on some work.
Had a bad evening with email but eventually got to sleep.
For an enormous amount more air & space pictures, see the whole google album of the trip.