Washington

Spent the day after the South America trip on a plane to Washington, DC for NSF. It was hard to leave after spending so much time with my iwi, my family, my working week and my Sunday rest.

Farhang of Fredericksburg was with his family celebrating the Persian New Year. That meant I had two days alone at the Phoenix Park Hotel before the work week began. Alone is always good for the soul. But I missed my sophisticated and compassionate Beyond Balderdash buddy.

One block from Capitol Hill and Union Station, the Phoenix Park Hotel features an Irish pub that sells more Guinness than any other place in the USA. Serendipitously, I arrived on March 17 at 5pm and there was already a sea of green out the door. When taxi man dropped me off, he told me this was the biggest party in the capitol. Needless to say, everyone I encountered was gregarious. I was wiped from all the air travel, but a young woman in the lobby, draped in Mardi Gras beads, cheered: Come join us after you get settled in! These folks sure were a spirited lot. While riding the creaky elevator up, reflecting on the many Senators that have stayed here, a guy handed me one of his Ipod earbuds and said: Listen! Listen! I obliged, and together we bobbed our heads to the hypnotic sounds of New Order until I reached my floor. Everyone was drunk and happy.

The true test of the friendly factor came the morning after St Patrick's Day. Yep, same gaggle of friendlies. It's nice to be in a town where personal boundaries blur, where people step out of their suburban cocoons and engage themselves with other bipedal primates. We are all social animals and I often wonder why some pretend otherwise (self included).

I hadn't been to DC in nearly ten years, so a visit to the Holocaust museum, American Indian museum, and, of course, the U.S. Post Office museum was on Saturday's agenda. I tried to work in the Scandal Tour, but short on time, decided to save it for later.

The faster pace of DC enlivens you, as does the ability to stretch your legs on the National Mall. I began to fantasize about a two-year stint with the National Science Foundation or perhaps the Smithsonian. The cherry blossoms were coming into bloom, the sun was high but not oppressive, and the scale of the world seemed right. Inspired, I made a rare public cell phone call to Casey while eating a muffin on the steps of the National Gallery.

On my last day at Phoenix Park, I requested a taxi to the conference hotel and was told it'd take 20 minutes. When I said I'd just walk to the nearest metro, the concierge seemed deflated, and eagerly replied: Maybe sooner than 20? Why don't you just sit and relax? I told him that the people of DC sure were kind. In confusion, he added: But why wouldn't they be kind to you?

Maybe I should just liken my mid-sized Colorado town to a beautiful woman with an average personality.