Catholicgauze in DC: Final Part

As readers know I was in DC to defend freedom, right universal wrongs, and any other cliché you can imagine. What you do not know is that I had the time of my life by meeting a multitude of very great friends and making new ones.

The Trip (the parts I am at liberty to talk about)

Everything on the trip was almost last minute. I was going to stay with a friend but then plans quickly changed and I lodged at the Hostelling International USA’s DC hostel. It was a surprisingly clean and nice place to stay in downtown DC (To MJ, no good deed will go unpunished). I roomed with some amazing people including a Japanese kid who was biking from Los Angeles to New York and a friendly Australian Green Party member who was detained in London because cop's thought he was a terrorist. Other highlights include dominos and practicing my Spanish with a German on his way to Central America.

The Green Aussie shows his recepit for being detained. "Arrested" was check-marked "no"

Besides meeting nice foreigners I tried out the so-called international sport of soccer. (Side note: While jerks claim the rest of the world calls soccer "football" there are countless examples of international use of the word soccer like the National Soccer League, Qantas Socceroos, and Indian soccer). I saw DC United defeat the New England Revolution 1-0. The first and only goal was scored within the first eight minutes of the ninety minute game. The sport was boring but being in the wild crowd that rocked the stadium was fun. I was told that more people in America now go to Major League Soccer games than National Hockey League games. Believable in my mind because of the strike damaging hockey fans' loyalty.

Ole! Ole! Ole!

The last bit I am free to talk about is food. Gosh dang, DC has some good places to eat. A good general place to eat is Potbelly's with their filling subs. One owns it to themselves to try out Ben's Chili Bowl on U Street in DC's historic African-American district. The place is one of the last true 1950s-style diners. The workers are uber-friendly and the chili dog with chili fries is the perfect food to eat while discussing geo-political developments in the Hispano world. Finally I ate at the Hotel Washington's outside Roof Top Terrace restaurant. The food was fantastic (I could not finish my great but too large Chicken Caesar salad) and the view was even better.

Just part of the great view from the roof. Lincoln Memorial in the background.

I did miss a few friends while on the trip but it was successful none the less. The next great journey for Catholicgauze should be to San Francisco for the AAG's 2007 convention.