Giant Moth

After Safeway, there was a 20 minute wait for a bus, so I decided to walk home in the sweltering heat. It would have been INCREDIBLY painful to just wait in the heat (I think DC had a high of 117F-feels like today!! And, I think at 4PM it felt around 113-115F. ACK!) Anyway, because I walked home, I saw this giant moth on a tree close to the Chancery. I think it was dead. It's huge! Look at the photo with my credit card used as a reference (Yup! The forensic geek side of me kicked in)

A couple walking in front of me noticed this guy and stopped. I'm always curious, so I had to stop and see what it was that caught their attention, and then I HAD to take photos! :D 

The wings are hazy in this photo because the moth was fluttering with the breeze, and I was too hot by then to take enough photos to be sure I got a perfect one. 

Size Reference - the long edge of my credit card is on the right side of the photo

After taking a few photos of the moth, I realised that the size wouldn't get captured without a reference and the awe factor would then be considerably reduced. With just clothes in my bag, my credit card was the closest size reference I could get before the heat got me!

Safeway in Glover Park is FANCY!!!!

After my swim, I went to the Safeway in Glover Park. It is FANCY!!! It has a cheese bar and fresh cold cuts bar and fresh peanut/almond/cashew etc station and other things seen in other nice supermarkets, but I saw a couple of things I have never seen before! A Honey Station and a Wine Cellar!!!

 Honey Station

Wine Cellar

Swimming!!!!!!!!!!

Jelleff Pool

In the incredible heat that has taken over the North East, I decided to find a pool and spend a lot of time in it! Juliet, at the gym, told me about Jelleff Community Center (it doesn't show up if you google swimming pools in DC...which might not necessarily be a bad thing) on S street. It is closer than the pool at Volta place and is also free. 

I got there at about 1:15 and remained in the pool until 3:10. It was amazinggggg!! I was essentially the only person in the swim lane for the most part. And this is the first time since 2002 summer (at Shereton in Muscat) that I have been able to swim without stopping for as long as I want. It was just so so so incredible! 

After I finished the bulk of my swimming, I took advantage of being near the inlet of fresh water. The water that was coming in was much cooler than the water already in the pool. I pipe was to low to stand under the water flow, but I went under water and felt the cold water pouring over me there, it was just incredible! :D Happy Times!

I ♥ swimming!

He quite enjoyed Angry Birds!

On another note, while watching him tonight, I went through his school work. His drawings were very interesting! I also freaked him out, a little I think, when I accidentally pointed out that Vampire and Vincenzo start with the same alphabet! oops!

Mushrooming Squirrel

This little guy was eating some wildly grown mushrooms! I had seen them yesterday in the grass on the "hill" outside work and wondered about them. It was the first time in 5 years that I had seen mushrooms there, so wondered what actually happened to them and how they disappeared. I got my answer today...the squirrels chomp them away!

Macademia Kisses

...only available in Hawaii

Bua

After the movie at the NG Museum, we were ravenous! We headed to Bua, where Saurabh used to go often his first year in DC. He was craving Pad Thai. I am not a HUGE fan of Pad Thai, it's nice...but nt something I would seek out. 

After walking in the heat, we got to Bua, settled at our table and immediately ordered the Thai Iced Tea (for me) and the Thai Iced Coffee (for Saurabh). This was this first time both of us tried Thai Iced Coffee, and we aren't huge fans. 

We started the meal with the Tom Yum Gai (Sliced chicken and mushroom in spicy lemon grass soup) and the Fried Dumplings (I don't recall all that was in it, but it had crabmeat, shrimp, chicken and some veggies). And for our entree we got the Pad Thai (Thai specialty of noodles stir-fried with shrimp, egg, bean sprout and crushed peanuts). 

The soup was good, but not the best tom yum I have had. But, the dumplings and the pad thai were just FANTASTIC!!! I said in the beginning that I don't typically crave pad thai, this one, I would! 

Thai Iced Coffee (black-ish) and Thai Iced Tea (orange-ish)

Tom Yum Gai

 Fried Dumpling

Pad Thai - We got to it before the camera did :-/

Soy Andina

Soy Andina translates to 'I am Andean'.

This is centennial year since Machu Picchu's discovery. In honour of this year, National Geographic has a bunch of events on Peru and Machu Picchu. We went for this movie, Soy Andina. The movie tells the story of two Peruvian Americans, Cynthia Paniagua and Nelida Silva . The movie shows their link to Peru through dance. 

After the movie, Cynthia performed live - she culminated different Peruvian dances in her piece, Despierta Peru. It was excellent! And after they had a question and answer session with Cynthia, Mitch Teplitsky (producer/director) and Nelida (who was phoned in from Peru)

Funny Incident: During the Q&A session, Mitch and Cynthia were talking into their "own" fixed mikes on the podium. Midway through the Q&A session one of the organizers hands Mitch a cordless mike and tells him, "You have been talking into the light." HAHAHAHAHA! He was QUITE embarassed!!!!

 Cynthia performing after movie - the best I could do with my phone camera

 Cynthia and others posing with the Machu Picchu sign at the entrance, after the performance

Saurabh's Favourite Chore

 See, he seems mighty thrilled to take on this task!

 "Ummmmm...what do I do with this stuff?"

 "Guess I should go in?"

 "This seems to be the only way to go about this."

 SPLAT!!!!

 Emerging...

 "Uhhhh....Oh! I think it got me!"

 "Think you got me, eh Mr Comforter Cover? I don't think so!!"

 Checking it out from the other side

 Almost done!

VICTORIOUS!!!!!

Toscana

We went for an early dinner, that happened to coincide with their happy hour, this evening to Toscana. It was a very happy coincidence, the happy hour. The appetizer and alcohol were half price! 

We got a bottle of Proseco (Italian Sparkling Wine) that we quite enjoyed! To start we got the Calamari & Shrimp (white wine butter sauce, peas, tomatoes, toasted bread) which was delicious. As our entree we got the Risotto of the day which was veal shank risotto with porcini mushrooms. Sooooooooo good! And we got a piece of marrow in the risotto too which made it even more perfect. We ended the meal with a chocolate gelato and a raspberry sorbet. The chocolate gelato was yum, the raspberry was nice, but it could have been more tangy.

 Proseco

 Shrimp and Calamari

 Veal Shank Risotto

 Raspberry Risotto and Chocolate Gelato

I definitely want to go back to this place. The pizzas being served at the table adjacent to us looked rather appealing!

ps: I didn't care much for the bread in the bread basket they serve, but that's okay, the food more than makes up!

Street Cleaning in DC

Harry Potter 7 - Part 2

Just like I went for the midnight release of the last book (the only midnight book release I've been for for the Harry Potter Series), I went for the midnight release of the very last Harry Potter movie. I went with excitement and a heavy heart. :( 

I can't believe it's all over! I enjoyed the movie :) But I preferred Part 1.

Probably my favourite part of the movie, the photo doesn't do justice though

Meat Ravioli and Tomato Sauce

...from Vace Italian Deli! Yum!!!

CapMac

CapMac is a Mac and Cheese food truck in DC. Today, this truck was at the Farmer's Market in Glover park. We got the Goat Cheese Mac with Garlic Chicken (Tomato jam, basil and tarragon panko) and the Pesto Mac (Fresh basil pesto, roasted zucchini, green beans and white beans. Served chilled). We got it home to enjoy because the ~90 degree weather wasn't conducive to relishing this meal. Both were delicious, but we both leaned slightly towards the Goat Cheese Mac. 

Also, the portion sizes are quite large. Two people could share one and then get a soft serve or the like. 

Matching Matching

 Table at Pete's Diner 

Cupboard in Muscat

The table tops at Pete's Diner match that of my cupboard in Muscat. :D

Pete's Diner

Having heard Saurabh and people at WRI rave about this place, I finally headed out to SE to meet Saurabh and his coworkers for lunch at Pete's. Their general rule is to not order from the menu, but order whatever their daily special is. I had heard many stories about their fabulous veggie specials, and that is what I got. I also got their Vietnamese Iced Coffee, which was delicious! I was a little disappointed with the food, but it might be my bias and not the fact that the food wasn't good. The Veggie Special today was tofu heavy and I'm not a huge fan of fried tofu. The pattie, too, had a lot of tofu in it. That being said, the brown rice with some miso sauce and veggies was FANTASTICCCC! If only for that, I would definitely want to go back to this diner! :)

Vietnamese Iced Coffee

Free!! Veggie Rolls

Veggie Special on July 8, 2011

Doubt Baby Jesus Is Happy...

...about two of his gifts being turned into soap!

Adventure At The Bottom Of The World

Saurabh and I went to the NG museum for a talk by Christian Eide on his experiences while skiing to the south pole in a record breaking 24 days 1 hour and 13 minutes. Christian is from Norway. He was funny and entertaining as he spoke about his inspirations to take on this endeavour and his experiences through it. He brought a lot of the equipment he used and wore during the trip to the talk for us to see. This included his skis, tent (that he was take down in ~30 seconds!!!!), pulk, shoes (and he showed us photos of how he fixed it when they came apart), sweater, sleeping bag (that was stored open, so he didnt have to roll it open and close each night) and other warm gear

 At the South Pole

As usual, it was an excellent  event and for the first time I asked a question in the Q&A session. I asked about power to charge his GPS, PDA etc when he was there. He had carried a lot of batteries, but also carried a solar panel. I thought that was interesting.

Matching Matching

 Cake Topper at Sohini and Joy's Wedding :D :D

Card from Saurabh and me to Sohini and Joy! :D :D