Our short trip to Atlantic City and Washington has already come to an end, but I think it was a fun one. First of all it was really great to hang out with Ignat and Vika and to play a role of a tour guide (albeit not a great one).

First day was Atlantic City day. We got there rather early only to find out that the pools are open on the weekends only. So we had a long day with not much stuff to do. We gambled a bit by playing on the slot machines of different kinds and then played some more on the “Wheel of Misfortune”. Luck was not really working in our favor (does it ever in casinos?), so we didn’t gamble too much.

In the evening Ignat and Vika treated us to a nice dinner in an upscale stake house located inside the Showboat casino & hotel, the one we were staying at. Then we went back up to our room and tried to go to sleep, during which time Alena and Vika discussed a magnitude of different topics. One of the those was a variety of weird names. The best one that I heard was told by Vika about a guy whose name went through the process of “uzbekification” and then was finalized by a secretary typo. The guy who was known as Руслан Абаев became Рулон Обоев.

Next morning after eating a breakfast at a local buffet we drove out to Washington. We were near our hotel by about 5:30pm and were checked-in in the next 5 minutes. I have to say that staying at Embassy Suites (a hotel chain owned by Hilton) was a great pleasure once again. We were given a suite on the last 15th floor (by my request), everyone on staff was extremely courteous, we were treated to a free reception where hotel provided free bar and snacks, had a great breakfast which was also included, and the pool area was open until midnight. Can’t think of anything that would’ve made our stay there better.

Before parking the car we decided to drive to the Washington National Cathedral, something that we haven’t really visited before. I am not a fan of church and religion in general, but I have to say that I was really impressed. The cathedral was magnificent. Architecture and the attention to detail outside and inside is really extraordinary. The light shining through the stained glass, pipe organ music and the magnificence of this all was really majestic.

We took Massachusetts Avenue on our way to the cathedral and back to the hotel and saw a lot of different embassies on our way. The most interesting was a fact that we actually spotted the embassy of Uzbekistan. I almost got nostalgic, but not quite.

Once we got back to the hotel we took a cab to Lincoln Memorial and went back to our hotel on foot stopping at all memorials. I was there many times, but it always looks interesting and especially so when you’re showing it to someone who haven’t seen it before. Our tour went in the following sequence — Lincoln Memorial, Reflecting Pool & Washington Memorial, Korean War Memorial, Albert Einstein statue and the White House.

We took a lot of pictures and finished our evening by having a dinner at the same Thai restaurant that we visited with Lenchik and Tanya and then getting into the pool and jacuzzi and sitting there until the midnight. I think everyone enjoyed the pools a lot as well. We kept running back and forth between the hot jacuzzi and a cool pool and even played a game of “Собачка” with one of my shoes.

In the morning we had our breakfast provided by the hotel where we were served scrambled eggs cooked to order and variety of other things. Once we checked out, we drove to the Capitol Hill and were lucky to find a parking spot quickly enough. It was a very humid day, but we walked all the way to the Capitol and then visited the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. After the walk we jumped back into the car, drove by Jefferson Memorial, Arlington Cemetery and Pentagon and went back home.

On our way we went through a town with a pleasing name to any Russian language speaker — Joppa. We also planned to stop somewhere for dinner on our way, but at one point we went through a lengthy discussion of various Uzbek meals and nobody wanted to eat anything else after that. So instead we went right to Brooklyn and had a dinner at a local Uzbek restaurant — “Купола Саморканда”. Анд зетс хоу аур трип конклюдед.

In conclusion I just want to say again that the trip was fun and I enjoyed the company the most. Also I want to apologize for this post being so enormously long.

1

Boris says:
September 23, 2007 @ 17:00

Интересно было почитать. Я рад, что ваша поездка удалась, и вы увидели что-то новое.

2

Alex says:
September 24, 2007 @ 11:42

Хехе… Рулон Обоев

Great photos. Cool spaceship.

To be honest, if I ever encountered a sign that pointed to Joppa going left and Joppatowne going forward, I would definitely pick Joppatowne — a whole town of Joppas is much better than just one

3

Daniel says:
September 24, 2007 @ 12:35

Hehehe.

4

Victoria says:
September 24, 2007 @ 20:45

Даня, зря ты скромничаешь, ты был замечательным гидом! Я даже не ожидала, что моя поездка в Америку бедет такой насыщенной и интересной, какой она оказалась благодаря тебе. За один вечер и утро в Вашингтоне мы успели увидеть все самые главные достопримечательности.

А я и не заметила, что так много болтала в тот вечер в Антлантик-сити Видимо, у меня случилась неконтролируемая вспышка мозговой активности. По вечерам и в хорошей компании у меня такое бывает

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