I have been home sick these days. On my way back across the Atlantic, I sat next to a guy with a cold who for eight hours refused to use a napkin. While I thought it was really disgusting, I thought I should try to have a little more class than to ask for another seat (despite several empty rows), and watched instead movies with headphones on almost the entire trip. And now I am stuck with a severe cold. I hate being sick, but the worst thing is that Carro and her boyfriend Martin were here for a week and I was hardly able to hang out with them. Not as much as I wanted to anyway. It was terrible because I had been looking forward to them coming for months, but I couldn’t do much about it. I was tied to the apartment from Tuesday to Friday with my lovely guests looking after me instead of me looking after them. (I guess I don’t have to add that I truly HATE the guy on the plane!)

Monday, I was still kind of OK and I had taken the day off to be able to show Carro and Martin around a bit. We went down to the White House and walked around in the areas around before having lunch in the Sculpture Garden. In the evening (after some shopping in Georgetown), we had afternoon coffee/aperitivo at Cafe Leopold where we met up with Martin (Mr. M) and where we also saw White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel a few tables away. It is actually the first time I see someone from political Washington here, so I was really excited. Carro was almost equally excited about the fact that she saw the brother of the person on who the character Ari Gold in Entourage is based. And to be frank, I guess that does add a little to Emanuel’s persona.