Walking Around

You can get pretty far if you just pretend that you belong.

I spent the afternoon walking around downtown DC by myself, just getting some fresh air with no particular plan in mind. I was kind of trying to find a restaurant that I thought was in the area I was wandering, or I thought I might stumble across a bookstore or something.

I circled several blocks, and was thinking about giving up and just eating any old place, but I was walking past a Marriot, so I figured, "why not ask the concierge?"

Anyway, just kind of strolled up to the desk and asked about the restaurant. She pointed it out to me on a map, then gave me the map and also circled a nearby bookstore and a movie theater. She was very helpful, and almost made me wish I was staying there. I was feeling very cool and secret agent like as I left with the top secret map in my back pocket.

Then I pushed on the door that was clearly marked "pull" for like 10 seconds on the way out.

What?

Like you've never done that before...moving on.

I went in search of my restaurant, but I never made it there. A block from the hotel I got hit by a torrential downpour. I mean the kind of rain that looks like it should hurt. I was only about two blocks from the theater the concierge had pointed out, so I went there instead. Since I was pretty much instantly soaked, I found a perverse kind if satisfaction in strolling down the sidewalk, smiling and waving to all the people running by under flappy umbrellas. They were very confused. It was great =).

So instead of the sushi restaurant I had been questing for, I ate at McDonalds, as that was the only real option though. It was cool though, because I had a coupon for a free sample of the new addition to the menu, a southwestern chicken sandwich. It's kind of like the annoying, B student little brother of a Chick-Fil-A sandwich, in case you were wondering. Some cops who were hanging around to wait out the rain chased out a homeless looking guy who wasn't buying anything, which seemed unfair to me because it was raining on him too. I wanted to buy him some food but he left pretty fast.

I ended up watching Indiana Jones, which was good in that it gave me something to do while I waited for the storm to pass, and bad in that the theater was - of course air conditioned...I tried to use the shivering to create friction with the seat, which didn't work but made me feel like I was doing something about the situation. At least I dried off fast.

The storm was pulling a Hillary Clinton by the time the movie let out. Everyone knew it was over but it hung around and kept sputtering anyway.

Two blocks in any direction from the Verizon center (where the theater is), you will find bright lights and those kind of fake facade restaurants and buildings that are supposed to look authentic but just look like Disney knockoffs. With the rain coming down, it felt exactly like walking through a movie set, especially since I was again the only person without an umbrella. I even took off my hat so the water could run all the way down my face. I told the doormen outside a hotel I walked past that it was a nice night for a swim, which they laughed at.

So basically, my aimless wandering ended up exactly the way I had hoped it would, interesting and unexpected.

Life is good.