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Day 25: Washington DC

Wednesday, Sept 28, 2022

A relatively short drive today from Allentown to Washington DC. The break from long drives daily was welcome and much needed. The destination today was my nephew's house in central Washington DC. 

Washington DC is not one of the 48 states I am covering in this road trip. It is a district, created in the constitution as the seat of the US government. Its odd status is captured well in the tagline on their license plates - "Taxation Without Representation". 

Driving through the eastern states, a big difference compared to California is the widespread usage of tolls on the freeways. Most places have done away with the toll booths and now use electronic tolling like E-ZPass. I don't have one, so I have been driving through without paying. I am supposed to get a bill in the mail to pay the tolls from the various states I have gone through. Remains to be seen if this will all work out cleanly. 

I reached my nephew's house late afternoon. It is in central DC, surrounded by bustling streets,  restaurants, nightlife and of course, traffic. I loved the energy and excitement, which is a big contrast to the sedate, suburban living in large houses with big backyards. 

We walked around some of the neighborhoods on our way to dinner at a Malaysian restaurant. The food was delicious, but very spicy.  We continued our walk through other city streets and made our way to a Comedy Club. It had a long line of amateurs, trying to engage the audience during their brief 5 minutes on the stage. A lot of the jokes fell flat and I couldn't help wonder - this is a much harder job than software development.

 

Tired after our long walks through the city streets, we took an Uber back to his home and retired for the night. It was wonderful meeting, chatting and catching up with my nephew and experiencing Washington DC in a new, non-tourist way.

The raw numbers for the day:

  • 190 miles driving, 6600 steps walking
  • 1 Tesla supercharger stop
  • 3 states - Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Washington DC

 

Comments

  1. ManeeshaOctober 2, 2022 at 8:22 PM

    Hey, hey. There is lot of comedy in engineering as well. Do a google search for "recursion". It says "Did you mean: recursion "

    ReplyDelete
  2. VisheshOctober 3, 2022 at 6:00 AM

    Nice! Seems like a uniquely low-key and enjoyable day. I remember being impressed by the variety of cuisines available in DC when I interviewed there. I ate a lot of Ethiopian food. :)
    (Also I like how you added in DC but kept it italicized & didn't count it; nice stylistic choice.)

    ReplyDelete

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