living, thinking and writing
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| PRACTICE living, thinking and writing |
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Thursday, November 11, 2004 Ms. Lin goes to Washington Have I said that I got a little too much the sunshine and droning coziness in California, which makes my trip to DC especially exciting? That was the first trip back to the East coast in 15 months, and I embraced autumn leaves, rain and wind like an old friend. Even the air, dry, fresh with scent of pine, smell so different from the West coast. It was my third visit to DC. In the summer of 2000, I came as a total tourist and only spotted wherever crowded with most of people, that means Smithsonian, Whitehouse and Lincoln Memorial and DC is just a tourism city to me. The second time I took a stroll alone from Dupont Circle to Adams Morgan, one afternoon during my stay in Maryland University for a workshop; I had a Thai seafood plate outdoor in Connecticut Ave near the subway. It was a late summer afternoon, the whole street is lined up with small dinning tables shined with white cloth and wine glasses; candle lights flickering in the mellow and warm wind, people drank and laughed in front of assorted restaurants serving exotic culinary. I’m an incurable petty bourgeois and I believe I felt in love with DC at that moment. I learnt later that Adams Morgan is the most bohemian area in DC. This time I came as a traveling spouse who got a ‘friend fly free’ deal and came with no specific plan. I just wandered around the city, and surprisingly found how much it (the good part of it) resembles Paris: grandiose palaces (or government buildings), Beaux style of residence buildings neatly and harmoniously filling the streets, small plazas with classic sculptures and fountains spotted everywhere, and outdoor coffee houses and restaurants are crowded with yuppies. In a rainy afternoon, friends took me to a Peruvian restaurant for lunch in Farragut, a very urban area packed with office building and department stores. It was so cold and raining so hard that day, but the restaurant was full of warmth and life, and of course, people. I like to see all those professions in white shirt and black coat, some with necktie, some with a cashmere scarf casually around the neck, to a professional student like me, these people look like from another world. It was the second day after the election; many tables were engaged in heated discussion, so was our table of three ladies. American politics in a Peruvian restaurant over an exquisite dish of seafood rice mixed with chili and red wine, very hot. Georgetown is the chicest college town I’ve ever been. The M street leading to the campus felt like Beverly Hills but with intellectual touch, while the campus felt like an cloister abbey back to 18 century with all the grey gothic buildings. Around the campus are quiet streets where you found rows and rows of upscale town houses with heavy doors, peaked or arched roofs and big grilles. We strolled through the quiet streets after dark, listen to the rustle of the dry fallen leaves we stepped on; the air is cold and fresh and the light from the windows are warm and homey. I heard the ‘ The Exorcist’, one of my favorite horrors was shot here, but that’s not horror how I feel. What was in my mind during that walk is that I would exchange the warm weather in California for a winter in Georgetown. The last night in DC I took Bin to Adam’s Morgan to revive some Bohemian spirit, but I could not found the street I used to have dinner two years ago. So we sat down in a Spanish restaurant looking down a small plaza in the center of which a postmodern sculpture stood, by ‘postmodern’ I mean I could not tell the shape of the sculpture, especially after dark. The first floor of the restaurant is a crowded bar, while we sipped Sangrias and waiting for our food, the flamingo music from downstairs pumped through the floor, and together with the Sangrias, burning in my vein. I do love DC. posted by lmeimei @9:14 PM| permanent link| | |
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