I was going to talk about how the nice part of spring here is that the trees seem to bloom in cycles so it's been three weeks or more now and there are still trees blooming while others have moved on to green. However it is 86 F out (still at 8 o'clock at night - high today was 90F!!! that's 32C for you up north) so it seems spring is over and we've move right along to summer. At least there's no humidity (yet). Though with all the different pollen in the air, I'm having some allergy symptoms and I don't really get allergies.

I feel I've been writing in rush mode lately so I thought I'd go back and talk some detail. Last night pre-awards, Max the VP of theatre took us out to dinner. We went to a place called Cafe du Parc and it is attached to the Willard Hotel along Pennsylvania Ave. Now I want someone to come visit me and stay at the Willard so I can stay with them. I imagine it's only $500 a night or so. It look beautiful from the outside. We sat under umbrellas on the sidewalk with a great view of the world going by. The cuisine was French and so difficult as a vegetarian and I would say not the best meal I've had here, but the setting made up for it.

One other point I thought I should clarify about the awards last night. For whatever reason (stupid in my opinion), the awards are for productions that occurred in the last calendar year - not the theatre season which is how everyone else does it. So I'd actually seen a number of the shows that were nominated. No, this doesn't make sense. And no, no one can explain why it's done this way. Like many things in DC I've been told just to accept it and move on. (they aren't big on people questioning things in these parts!)

After work tonight the other company manager and I went to check out a restaurant where our star wants to have a closing night party. It's called Ris after the chef who is once again famous and internationally renown. We just had to have dinner and on Tuesdays they do a French menu. In this case, they bent over backwards to give me veg options not on the menu or to tell me what they could modify. The service was unbelievable. And the cheese! Oh, the cheese....

DC was designed by the French and you can really see it in the certain streets like Penn that are wide boulevards - perfect for outdoor cafes and the traffic circles like Dupont. The park that is Dupont Circle is also used very much like the parks in Paris. This neighbourhood is full of apartments without outdoor spaces so people use the parks to walk their dogs, read, sleep, eat ice cream, smoke dope (some nights the breeze is very pungent!). But it's nice seeing the people who live here use the public spaces.

The countdown to the end is truly on now. Only 8 weeks to go which seems remarkable to me. So I'll soon be homeless and jobless!! If the visa thing was easier to work out, I might choose to stay down here a little while longer. I feel there is still so much to see and experience and the Americans still have so much to be taught about socialized healthcare! Some of my fellow fellows are truly stressed about what happens next while I am trying for a bit more of a zen approach and hoping that the universe will provide a new and rewarding challenge. Time will tell.