A Bit More About D.C.

Our capitol is a great town. It's beautiful, the people are friendly, and you can get from one place to another easily. I wish Kansas City was big and dense enough for a rail system to really work. Maybe it's because I am around them so little, but every time I get an opportunity to use a subway I love it.

Good food in D.C. as well. I ate lunch three days straight in Chinatown. I don't really understand the inverse relationship between food quality and restaurant cleanliness, but I'm happy to take advantage of it.

The same cannot be said for my experience at the French Embassy. I stayed near Embassy Row, so I was used to walking down the street near all these beautiful old houses that had been converted into embassies. Really stunning classical buildings. So I was very excited when I found out I was going to a reception at the French Embassy. The French have money and usually pretty good taste, so they probably have one the best embassies of all right? Wrong. The had some post-modern marble and concrete structure tucked in north of Georgetown. It felt like the kind of place you might go if you were in a movie about the sterility of the future. I was sure that a cyborg waiter would chastise me for impure thoughts at any moment.

The rest of the city was still great. It's amazing how difficult it is to be cynical standing in front of the Declaration of Independence. It's also amazing how quickly you can snap back to form when you step outside and see CNN running on a TV monitor.