Days 1 & 2

We arrived in Arlington on 9/2. An affable Tony the Cat greeted us. We settled in quickly and spent the next day, Labor Day, relaxing with daughter Alana who's been living in DC for almost a year.

A highlight on Monday was shopping at the huge Unique Thrift Store in Falls Church where Ack got ties and handkerchiefs, Anne got fabric for her quilt, and Alana found two great coats. Back at the house, Alana pulled out the DVD "Big Trouble in Little Chinatown," a movie that started out serious then joined the rest of us in laughing at itself. Two of several memorable lines: "We really shook the pillars of heaven" and "I was born ready."

After dropping Alana and her new treasures at her home off 16th Street, Ack and Anne enjoyed a great meal at Zed's, an Ethiopian restaurant on 28th Street in Georgetown. (DC is a major locale for Ethiopians in the US.) Ack had the Spinach and Rice with Chicken Infillay and Anne had the vegetarian sampler, which included 1) Cauliflower, string beans and carrots in stewed tomatoes, 2) a DELICIOUS puree of yellow split peas mixed with onions, green peppers and garlic, 3) Red Lentil Miser Watt with a spicy red pepper sauce, 4) chopped sauteed collard greens mixed with onion and garlic, and 5) cabbage with carrots in a nice sauce. We shared a bottle of Hakim stout, a dark sweet Ethiopian beer. If you're familiar with Ethiopian food, you'll know that we ate the entrees with injera, a spongy round flat bread, slightly sour due to the fermenting of the teff flour used in making it. We appreciated the hand-wipes our waitress brought us at the end of the meal! Sitting outside on the clear warm night, we enjoyed watching the busyness of M Street at dusk.