Quiet

What I've been up to for the past two weeks? Work, work, work.

This weekend has been all about doing nothing, catching up on my house, and meeting up with a few friends.

I feel as if from now on I can take more time for myself again, after a hectic couple of months: changing roles at work, planning a holiday, dealing with post-relationship stuff - but I hope that from now on I can focus on trying out some new things again, enjoying my own house, not being glued to the computer, etc etc.

Pictures of the trip are coming, sorted them out tonight, now only need to find the time to upload them.

Home, but not quite

After a long and hectic trip back to the Netherlands, I am finally home again. But it doesn't quite feel like it as I am not surrounded by mounds of laundry and cool new things that I bought. The only thing in my house physically reminding me of my trip right now is a poster of the Guggenheim museum. Everything else is in my backpack - which is lost.

Statistically speaking, I'm sure it will turn up, but I'm getting slightly anxious now and am starting to think of things I need to buy tomorrow if it doesn't show up soon!

Very frustrating. The not-so-fun side of travel.

Three's

Highlights
* US Open Final
* Seeing whales do somersaults
* 25C weather 2,5 weeks straight.

Disappointments
* a non-public 9/11 memorial
* not seeing any non-city
* many many sites under renovation (mostly disappointed about the Congress and the UN Security Council)

Best dinners (not necessarily best food, though)
* at Annapolis wharf
* at Brighton Beach
* at The Garage

Surprising sights
* US network television
* Squirrels! Everywhere!
* a man praying in a nightshop

Most impressive sights
* the view from the Empire State Building
* the Guggenheim museum
* Library of Congress

Best shops
* Kenneth Cole
* Urban Outfitters
* St. Mark's bookshop

D.C., etc.

I'm on my last day in Washington, D.C. and it's been different than expected. It isn't the overwhelming city reflecting world power that I thought it would be. I had partly expected a city resembling Moscow, not in style but in feeling. Huge, overwhelming, giant - with a clear sense of all the money and power there is located in those blocks.

Washington isn't like that. Yes, there are a lot of big government buildings and the roads are big and almost look built for tanks (like in Moscow and Beijing). But the buildings look antiquated to me, huge but built to remember and not to use and work in. They don't feel real, only seem to be a tourist attraction while the actual power goes on somewhere else.

A little bit of a disappointment. But, the weather is amazing, the museums are free to go in and wander around, I am catching up with some people here and am mostly relaxing and unwinding. Very very good.