Day 10 - "Australia Day" in Washington DC

Time to give myself a little refresher course in jet lag! I arrived in Chicago @ 2:45am Portland time (4:45am Chicago time) for my two hour layover before flying on to Washington DC. The terminal was too brightly lit and busy to contemplate adding to the hour or so of sleep I managed on the flight, and there was no free Wi-Fi to be had, so it wasn't a particularly interesting wait for my connection.

The flight to Washington DC actually took off a few minutes early and I gained another hour of time zone, but sadly no sleep, during the 80 minute flight. Mark Darby was waiting a the airport for me - having only arrived home at about 1:00am himself from a trip to an education conference in San Francisco - so we were both feeling a bit jet lagged. It was a short drive to their Georgetown lodgings, where I met Mark's wife Kate.

After breakfast, and a shower and change of clothes to try and feel vaguely human, Mark and I drove to an Irish pub to watch the Australian Wallabies play South Africa in the Rugby Tri-Nations - as you do when in DC! We were certainly not the only antipodeans there. It was pleasing to see the Wallabies get a win on South African soil for the second year in a row, even if they made hard work of it.

The good Aussie barbeque in full swing.

The afternoon's outing was a short walk to the home of Chris and Kate, Australian Embassy staffers, who were having a good old Aussie Bar-B-Q, with a supply of Aussie lamb chops that would have made Sam Kekovich proud. If you should see that Australia's trade figures for August have a spike in lamb exports it is because Chris and Kate's fridge was so full of racks of Aussie lamb they had had to leave the milk out - I kid you not! I think it was the third big round of chops going on the barbie as we left around 6:00pm. It was a nice afternoon, even if my eye lids were getting very heavy at one stage.

After a short rest back at Darby Manor, Mark and I went for a walk through and around the nearby Georgetown University which includes some beautiful old buildings. On the way home we picked up some nice Thai food from a nearby restaurant, after declining the waiter's offer to seat us with the party of three who entered right behind us. Despite that fact that both Mark and I were struggling to stay awake we all became caught up watching the docu-drama about Flight 93, so I made it to bed way later than I had intended.