Yesterday was a nice and relaxing day. The weather is lovely here in DC, with Nordic summer temperatures and the sun shining. I ended up spending most of the day with Fernando, with whom I had decided to meet for lunch in Adams Morgan to practice French and Spanish. After having taken a break for a few weeks to study Romanian prior to my trip to Bucharest, I am now focusing on Spanish again. (While it is not essential to speak Spanish here in DC in order to get around, it often facilitate things. And the fact that you frequently have a chance to practice obviously makes it easer to learn.) So we had a very long and un-American lunch at a French cafe up on 18:th street. The staff was very busy and our waitress apologized after a while for the slow service, but Fernando and I agreed that it for once had been a really nice lunch as we had had time to sit and talk while going through the menu, were able to have a conversation over our meal without constantly being interrupted by a “How are you guys doing here? Is everything alright? Do you need anything else?”, had the chance to properly finish our plates without someone taking it away from us as soon as we slowed down a bit, and we were able to sit and talk and finishing our drinks without being handed the check. Eating out here is a quite different experience from eating out in Europe….

After our 2.5 hour lunch, we passed by a local artisan market that was in the area over the weekend, though it wasn’t very impressive to be honest. I expected artists and designers but the things that were sold were more like that of second year art-students. Even the most interesting things resembled stuff that I would easily find with Swedish retailers and at IKEA.

Instead, we continued the lazy day with coffee and cake at another French cafe, and in the evening, I went out with Fernando and his (mainly Spanish speaking) friends for dinner and drinks. So it was a quite unproductive but very nice day!