Yet another roadtrip...

This weekend, I was a little lost for what to do. I had a few options:

1. Give the girl in Charleston a call and go down for some drunken fun and warm weather. Pros: might get laid, and get to see more of lovely Charleston. Cons: stressful to meet up with these people I barely knew and who may have been looking to have a slightly better time than I might bargain fpor (if you know what I mean).
2. Go back to Boston. Pros: actually get to see my flat, see a couple of friends there and experience the New England winter for a change. Cons: Couldn't really be arsed to fly all the way up there and back.
3. Stick around in Charlotte. Pros: get to sleep (a lot), which would be good since the last week or so has been very busy/stressful at work. Cons: may end up just working the whole weekend if I'm not careful, leading to further erosion of soul.

By Friday lunchtime it looked like I was going to end up doing the latter. I had called the Charleston girl and left a voicemail on Thursday, but she hadn't got back to me and besides, I wasn't exactly feeling up for anything that hedonistic. I booked a hire car so that I could go and do some shopping (just food, nothing exciting - in Charlotte I need a car to do ANYTHING except work), but then I had a flash of inspiration and called a friend who lives in Washington, DC, which isn't all *that* far from Charlotte (well, a 6 hour drive, but I'm king of the road trips at the moment). She turned out to be free and amenable (even enthusiastic) to a visit, so on Saturday I forwent a lie-in and hot-footed it up I-85 through North Carolina, into Virginia and on up to DC.

Now, I really like Washington. I've been there just once before (to visit the same friend) and had spent most of the day wandering around the city on a gorgeous spring day, and devouring the Smithsonian museums that sit in the shadow of the Capitol. It's a tremendously well-turned out place, as you'd expect, and I love the aura of bustling politics and of important decisions being made all over the place (even if recently those decisions have been, ahem, misguided).

After dropping my stuff off at my friends' place we went out to meet an English friend of hers who works for the BBC - we had grea cocktails at a nice swanky place called Urbane in Georgetown, and then moved on to a French restaurant where I had really quite good onion soup and confit du canard - not as good as you get in France of course, but not a million miles off. We also had some chips for the table that had been deep-fried in duck fat. Now they were good. All washed down with a yummy Cabernet Sauvignon and accompanied by interesting conversation about Cuba (where the BBC girl had recently been), the US and politics. It made a lovely change from the fried chicken and work talk that is what Charlotte is coming to represent to me. Then this morning we had gorgeous Belgian waffles cooked by my host with her new waflle iron, slathered with maple syrup and fruit, and accompanied by the Sunday papers. Mmmm.

So now I'm on my way back, and have stopped off in Richmond, Virginia to see a gig by a folk singer I like that hails from this area: Paul Curreri. If there's one thing going for this part of the world, it's the music. Richmond doesn't seem to have a lot going for it, though I am having a spot of dinner in a great little bar called the Capital Ale House, which has a mind-boggling selection of beers. The Beer Menu sitting on the bar is about 20 pages long...