Home Made Meatpie

Geez, not much to report blog fans. The big excitement here is that our bedroom suite finally arrived so we can at last pack away our clothes and finish the final few boxes. The garage is chockers with boxes after a house full of furniture has been bought. I will organise a trash man to come collect and take it away. 

My wind trainer for the bike arrived today so I am now going to be a Zwift'er and get riding online with all the other global riders. This is a pretty impressive 'game' or cycling training program. There is much to learn but so long as my legs are spinning, I can take as long as I want to learn how to 'play'. Thanks to some of my mates at home for their help in getting me started and telling me about this new virtual world of cycling. In the real world though, there are some nice long trails (not single track unfortunately) that go into the city area. It's about 20km I think. One is an old railway line that's been made suitable for hiking and riding. Anyway, I plan to jump onto that near home and ride into the city and back. This will be a good way to train outside on the mtb although I am missing the normal mtb trails of home. There is lots of history and things to look at along the way so we should have a great summer of exploring on our bikes.

I spent today cooking. I made another banana cake for the neighbour across the road - they were away on holidays last time so that cake went to work instead. So I've made another - I'm sure their home now but I don't want to have made a second one to no avail. Plus I made a weetbix slice for Deb's work. And I also had another crack at meat pies. Much better effort this time. Same recipe but tweaked a bit, and I had puff pastry on top.  Check out the photos. 

 

The forest near us is turning into a big green jungle. I try walk the dogs everyday and they get such a good run in there. With the warmer weather, we tend to stop at the creek crossings and the dogs like to splash in the water. Macey got a swim today in a small waterhole. Cricket's not a keen swimmer so he tends to grab to the stick off Macey as she leaves the water - a nice little tug of war follows.

 

You've not doubt heard that Trump smashed the New York primary. It's going to be a very ugly Republican convention in June as he just might get the required half of delegates to get the Rep nomination to run for Pres. The Rep Party is really not sure what to do. Clinton seems to be set to get the delegate numbers and therefore be the Democratic nomination. I'm quite enjoying the politics here although the election at home has also got us interested...and worried.

A birthday

It's that time of year again, Deb's birthday. We were here in DC last year also as part of her surprise birthday holiday. We never imagined being here again...and living here. She was enjoying loads of birthday wishes yesterday on Facebook as we are well behind in the timezone so it was an early start for her. The weather today was fabulous, a few pressies were unwrapped and we took in a movie followed by a lovely wander in the forest with the dogs. 

It's been a busy weekend. We went the Eastern Markets yesterday morning for a tour by one of the local work staff. More great weather and we will definitely be going back to get some fabulous meat, veg and local crafts. I left slightly early to meet a  former work friend (one of the chooks) visiting so we spent the rest of the day together shopping, eating and catching up.

Almost a sossy roll :0

Flavoured pickles !!

There is a cafe at home that makes the BEST tollhouse cookies. I've tried to recreate this sweet treat and Nestle recipes are the most popular. Well voila, check out the shop we stumbled across when out shopping. I didn't buy any but I know where to go back to. 

And a story to finish to share an embarrassing moment. I bought Deb a Swatch watch for her birthday. When it arrived (through Amazon) I noticed it had stopped - damn, must be a flat battery. So I took it to a battery kiosk yesterday and asked could they replace the battery. The young fella looked at it, back, front, back again and said,it doesn't have a battery! What?? He said no, it doesn't need a battery. He was gently shaking it and it was working - see, it's ok now. It's a mechanical watch and it maintains time so long as you wear it every few days. I was quite embarrassed. He was smiling and my friend was just laughing. Anyway...later on we were at the kiosk next the battery guy. He saw me as he walked past and with a big cheeky smile he says, ' how's the battery workin' out for ya?'. My friend was in hysterics and I just laughed.  

Spring is coming.

 

White House Tour

We were very lucky to take an unguided tour of the East Wing of the White House. This was an organised tour by Deb's work and does not occur very often. The East Wing is the social, dining, reception and library area of the house. It has loads of history, lots of photos, paintings and artefacts. The rooms are still used (I think) as the signs says 'is' rather than 'was' used for things. They must be used when tours are not in progress. There is a red room, blue room, green room and the colours are pretty much that in those rooms.

I love Lincoln

   

The White House is the oldest public building in DC. Every President except George Washington has conducted the government of the nation here. President Madison was the first President to move into the White House in 1814. I also realised today that the Irish Pub we like in the city, James Hoban's, was named after the Irish architect who designed the White House. 

Great JFK

Reception Room

State Dining Room - seats about 140

North Entrance (our exit)

Last night we went to the opening night of the DC International Film Festival where 'The Dressmaker' was playing. It doesn't show here until Sept. The movie was sponsored by the Embassy thus some free tix were handed around. The Ambassador also introduced the movie. This was the third time we've seen this movie. And while there were laughs from the audience at our Aussie humour, there were only a few quiet giggles from the Aussies when dunny-bum got mentioned and  the iced-vo-vo made an appearance. There was after-party too and lots of great socialising was done.

If you've not seen the movie, you must see it - fabulous !!!

A bit of art culture

It's a busy week this week. Today one of my former work friends arrived in town for work stuff so we are catching up on the weekend for some shopping, eating and chatting. I will save the rest of the fun for the next few blogs. Today though, I went to the National Art Gallery. All the museums here are FREE which is just incredible. Mind you, some aren't but they are generally private. But the Smithsonians and Zoo are all free. Wow. I'm not a real arty farty person but I do like to wander around and at least try to fathom the wonder in the paintings. I didn't take a tour but should return for one because they usually tell you things about the painting that you don't get by just looking at them. I needed to google some paintings to understand them a bit better, plus I needed to sit down a while after walking the many rooms. So thanks again to wiki for helping me today.

For example, the 15th century portrait Davinci painting below is of Ginevra de’ Benci,  a Florentine aristocrat. The museum bought it for $5 million. The portrait is one of the highlights of the National Gallery of Art, and is admired by many for its portrayal of Ginevra's temperament. Ginevra is beautiful, but austere; she has no hint of a smile and her gaze, although forward, seems indifferent to the viewer. A strip from the bottom of the painting was removed in the past, presumably owing to damage, and Ginevra's arms and hands were lost. Now, The Napolean 1812 painting...Piled on the desk are a pen, several books, dossiers and rolled papers. All this, along with Napoleon's unbuttoned cuffs, wrinkled stockings, disheveled hair, the flickering candles and the time on the clock (4.13am) are all meant to imply he has been up all night, writing laws such as the Code Napolan, the word "Code" is prominent on the rolled papers on the desk. This maintains his new civil rather than heroic or military image, though the sword on the chair's armrest still refers back to his military successes. The fleurs-de-lys and heraldic bees also imply the stability of the imperial dynasty.

A Davinci

Napolean portrait

Right, that's enough art class for today. How about we move to cars. There is an exhibition of Presidential cars during April. This was outside in National Mall - it's President Taft's steam car. It was the first official White House automobile. The only known survivor of the first four automobiles in the 1909 White House fleet. It was capable of speeds in excess of 60 mph, which President Taft enjoyed and encouraged.   I took this other pic of artwork in the gardens. It's a typewriter rubber - if you are younger than 30, you prob won't know a typewriter. It was just clever and caught my attention.

 

Finally a couple of selfies. The dogs were distracted by another dog so they weren't interested in posing nicely for the camera. And the other one is Capitol Hill of course. And check this latest Trump development. I remember seeing one in Chicago - he's like a pissing dog leaving his mark everywhere. A massive TRUMP sign on the old Washington Post Office - very sad actually. It's being developed into a massive hotel. I can't be sure but I'm not sure if tourists will still be allowed to go up top the clock tower - probably not.

 

Spies and Bogans

The weekend was cold, wet one day and sunny the next. Where the hell is spring?? We decided to go to the Holocaust museum rather than stay inside. Unfortunately we couldn't get into the museum. It gets so busy that you have to book during peak season or take the chance on getting one of the limited tickets on the day. We missed those tickets. Guess we'll wait until winter when there's no tourists :0  There is a sign outside the museum - makes you think very hard. If you can't read the small yellow words...
The next time you witness hatred
The next time you see injustice
The next time you hear about genocide
THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU SAW



So instead we wandered off to the International Spy Museum which was busy as expected. It was quite interesting and I am tempted to go back in quiet season so I can take my time to read and and look longer. The museum covers spy tradecraft, spies during the world wars and cold war era, lots of artefacts and has some exhibits back to the US civil war and biblical days. The museum has good activities for kids as they follow a mission and do things as they wander around. Some interesting artefacts are shown below.

The tree stump with a 'bug' was placed by the US intelligence in Moscow in the 70's to eavesdrop on military radar and communications of a nearby Soviet missile system. Pigeons were used to carry cameras to photograph ground area or to carry messages.

You would all know about the WWII German encryption machine, Enigma, recently seen in the movie The Imagination Game. While I have seen one of these machines before, it still captures my attention having studied its crypto coding algorithms and mechanical architecture. 

The museum also has a fabulous history and lots of artefacts on the most famous spy of all - James Bond 007. I'm a huge Bond fan and would love to return to completely absorb all the history. There were cars, Jaws' steel teeth, the shark, cars, costumes, bombs, missiles and other technology from the movies. And a photo with the Bond below was irresistible.

Now, the other photo, I'll give you one guess at why this intelligence agency crest caught my attention. It's for the Main Intelligence Administration RUSSIA (or GRU). Seriously, can you believe the Bat symbol is in their crest !!

 

Now you're wondering what Bogans have to do with this post title. We stopped by the Shake Shack (burger joint) to get a bite to eat. The counter guy asks if we are Australian and we said yes. He then asks if we are from Bogan? We both looked at each other and were going arrrh, uummm...so I said what, did you just say bogan? He said yeah. Well I said no, a bogan is like a (struggling to find the words an American would understand), like a dead-shit or a dag !  Not sure if he understood but he laughed. Maybe I should have said a Walmart customer. He said oh my god, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you, there were Australians in here yesterday and they said they were from Bogan. We were all confused but safe to say, we said we were NOT bogans and we weren't offended. We had a great laugh over it. At first I wondered if he was referring to Bogan Gate (NSW) which was made famous in Dec 15 by a kid making a you tube video on his town. But apparently not. Who knows, maybe the Australians had said Brisbane and he thought they said bogan. 

 

We took a day trip to Great Falls Park where the Potomac River provides some spectacular powerful falls. It's about half hour drive away and VERY popular. Note the flood pole - I can't imagine how it would look with water up that high. There are several lookouts, a great area with lots of hike trails, picnic areas and you can take your dogs !! A canal was built alongside the river - the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal back in the late 1700's to stimulate trade. The C&O canal has a 184 mile bike path (from DC up to north Maryland) so we plan to ride this in segments and check out many of the historical sites of interests. There is another path that links all the way to Pennsylvania. You can view the falls from both the Virginia and Maryland sides. Kayakers play in the falls and we saw a few bravely paddling the rapids.

 

We have met a few more neighbours now. To make it easy, I remember there names by Norman Gunstan, Kevin Rudd and John Howard. Can't think of any for the wives but this is a good start. We have also started watching Outlander after many recommendations from friends. And we decided to have a go at 'Park Runs'. Well we have an exciting week ahead so you will have to wait to see what's in store when the next few blogs get posted.

Flat Tyre

Driving around to do the chores and I had the window down a little for some air. I hear this psss psss psss outside, like an echo off passing cars. At the lights I opened the door and sure enough, there is this loud hissing noise coming from the rear wheel. I was close to the parking place so I managed to get there safely before the tyre fully deflated. I had run over a fairly big chunk of steel.

 It was a biting cold day so I didn't look forward to changing the tyre outside. Procrastinating, I first went and did my banking and had to smile; they were so damn friendly and said have a lovely day. Little did they know what was back at the car for me. So I came back and changed the tyre quite easily. Next challenge was finding a tyre repair place. The servo next to Safeway where I shop was able to plug the hole which saved me getting a new tyre. They were very helpful too. Checkout the nasty piece below.

I have researched some meat pie recipes and bought my stuff. Plan is to make a pie on Thursday, pastry included. I can't seem to find short crust pastry in the shops anyway but I'm sure homemade will be nicer. I'll cook the meat filling in the crock pot so fingers crossed, this will be the start of something special.

Had a great day out with another new arrival. It was good to have company and nice to share stories of our moving-in week. Sad to say they experienced similar but different dramas - seems nobody gets an easy move. 

It is also Air Force week so there are lots of blue uniforms in town. I have seen a few familiar faces around and sometimes I feel like I haven't left Australia. 

Well Trump got a flogging last night in the Wisconsin primary. While this is a dent to his ego more than his lead, it still might be a turn of the tide. He was not a happy mop head today, lashing out everywhere like a sore loser would. So many people say they will leave America if he is President so where are these people who actually vote for him?  

I had a quick walk thru of the Natural History museum. First impression was that it was not as good as others I've seen such as New York and Chicago. But, there is always something fabulous and here it was the very famous blue Hope Diamond. It is very blue and beautiful which the picture doesn't show.

It is one of the most legendary jewels of history, with ownership records dating back almost four centuries. Weighing 45.52 carats, its exceptional size has revealed new findings about the formation of gemstones.

The jewel is believed to have originated in India, and is known to have been cut from the French Blue (Le bleu de France), presented to King Louis IV. It acquired its name when it appeared in the catalogue of a gem collection owned by a London banking family called HOPE in 1839. Later it was sold to a Washington socialite who was often seen wearing it. Since 1958, it has been on exhibition at Washington’s National Museum of Natural History. The Hope Diamond has long been rumoured to carry a curse, possibly due to agents trying to arouse interest in the stone. It was last reported to be insured for $250 million. Credit to wiki for the info.

Two interesting photos.  One was a brand of condiment in the supermarket. Made me think of some former workmates from my EP team - I could see them attracted to this. And the other photo is a steel and aluminium tree - bizarre art I guess. 





And a couple of pics of the dogs on their wanderings through the forest. Cricket's not keen no water so we're teaching him to run across the creek. He's quite proud of himself when he does it and gets very growly and jumpy on the other side. Quite funny to watch. Macey is in her element and would happily sit in it all day.

   

President Jackson

     

Just opening with a few random photos. The dogs exploring the forest creek area and tugging over a rope. Yes, you can tell we are still waiting on our bedroom suite to arrive as we are still sleeping on a mattress on the floor.

The White House photo shows a beautiful garden with tulips and the statue of President Andrew Jackson. Here's some interesting history on Jackson - and of course, thanks to wiki for this info. 

Andrew Jackson was the 7th US President (1829–37) and appears on the US $20 note. Jackson's quick temper was notorious. His masterful personality was enough by itself to make him one of the most controversial figures ever to stride across the American stage. His most controversial presidential actions included removal of the Indians from the southeast, the dismantling of the Bank of the United States, and his threat to use military force against the state of South Carolina to make it stop nullifying federal laws.  The first recorded physical attack on a U.S. president was directed at Jackson on 30 Jan 1835 just outside the US Capitol when Jackson was leaving after the funeral of a South Carolina Representative.  Richard Lawrence, an unemployed house painter from England, aimed a pistol at Jackson, which misfired. Lawrence pulled out a second pistol, which also misfired. Historians believe the humid weather contributed to the double misfiring. Lawrence was restrained, and legend says that Jackson attacked Lawrence with his cane. Others present also restrained and disarmed Lawrence. 

 Lawrence blamed Jackson for the loss of his job. He claimed that with the President dead, "money would be more plenty" (a reference to Jackson's struggle with the Bank of the United States) and that he "could not rise until the President fell". Finally, he told his interrogators that he was a deposed English King—specifically, Richard III, dead since 1485—and that Jackson was his clerk. He was deemed insane and was institutionalised. Afterwards, due to public curiosity concerning the double misfires, the pistols were tested and retested. Each time they performed perfectly. Many believed that Jackson had been protected by the same Providence that they believed also protected their young nation. The incident became a part of the Jacksonian mythos. 

Went to a shopping outlet centre on the weekend. It's not the factory outlet that we know at home but rather, a massive huge big shopping centre with every clothes, shoe and label shop you could think of. It's like a mini suburb area. The variety of clothes and shoes is incredible - I wish the supermarket food aisles were the same. I'm sure my lovely niece will enjoy a visit to this place. We are learning the shop staff are quite slow, no sense of urgency. It is definitely noticeable compared to home. 

Funny story....went to bed late Sat night after watching the final episodes of Downton Abbey. Just managed to get to sleep then sometime after midnight, my mobile rings...we exchanged a few hellos (as if we were doing a comms check) and then I said I think you have the wrong number after I couldn't understand him. Phone rings again...lots of background noise, no talk so I hang up again. The phone rings AGAIN !!  

Me: hello

Him: I got you chinese delivery

Me: I didn't order chinese?

Him: I at front your house

Me: (shit what, panic, look out the front blinds) no, nope, you're not at front of my house

Him: but you order fry-rye, stir-fry and leemon cheekin!

Me: No, it's not me, you're not at my house and I didn't order chinese!! Maybe you dialled the wrong number?

Him: haarrrhhhh hmmmm - clunk hung up.

Who orders chinese at that hour anyway??

I seem to get a few random phone calls. Maybe I have an old number, being re-used. Without fail, every Thursday and Friday I get advertising texts inviting me to various clubs for the great drinks and entertainment. There's Layla's Bar with great eye-candy or some X-place with cheap drinks for ladies before 9pm. I wish there was a way to unsubscribe.

Checked out another great place to eat yesterday - Uncle Julio's (mexican). Very yummy - I really like mexican. Did a bit of wandering around the street shops and I went into Ice Breaker (the NZ active wear place, like Katmandu). As always, the Australian accent drew attention. Everyone's first guess is NZ but at least it's close. Anyway, the conversation flowed and the girl tells me she thought Sydney was the capital of Australia, she never heard of Canberra. Crikey, Sydney wishes !!

Still haven't seen the Batman movie yet so it's only my priority list this week.