part tree, part aussie: An Aussie's little adventure in D.C sans IHOP (well, almost...)

I've always been a night owl...and after the excitement of the day and most folks had retired. I went downstairs about 11:40pmish cause I was hungry. LOL

I remembered seeing an IHOP on my way to the hotel and it looked close...so I was going to ask the concierge where the IHOP was...

as I got down stairs, Lara and BrawHawk were sitting at the same couch the became our nexus.

Lara being from Australia and BradHawk being from Seattle and a night owl himself were wide awake...

I told them I was thinking about getting some midnight snack and asked if they'd like to join me. Lara didn't know what an IHOP was and when we told her it was a 24 hour breakfast joint. Her eyes really glowed with interest...

There was another dude there that I didn't know. It turned out that he was a TSer from Va that lived an hour away and hitch hiked his way to the convention. Lara and Brad didn't know him either but he seemed friendly so we invited him as well.

I went to get the direction from the desk clerk and off we went...

When we got out of the garage and D.C's streets having so many ONE WAY street as it is...

I made a simple wrong turn that would seal our fate for the rest of the night.

According to the front desk dude, the IHOP was only 2 minutes away, right behind the hotel..

but for some reason, after I've made the wrong turn and ended up going on the wrong way onto on coming traffic and then correcting myself by making some illegal U-Turn....we ended up somehow by the Lincoln Monument and I think, on some sort of beltway....

Since neither Brad nor Lara nor the other dude had been to D.C and I hadn't been to D.C since I was 12....we decided that we'd just take advantage of it and just tour around D.C. it was going to be fun and we'd just let the road take us. We were sure we were going to find a restaurant or an IHOP some how...

although, Brad's OCD had really kicked in and decided that he really wanted IHOP...so, IHOP it was!!

I was the tour guide I guess as I named some of the monuments off....but I must admit that I must have also made some up because when I got to the "John Adams Monument" I could sense some eye brows raising...LOL

but still, IHOP was our goal and we started to back track to the hotel.

The streets in D.C in the middle of night is very confusing and there were a bit of constructions going on so we'd had to take a few detours...

at one time, we ended up in a dead end road in what seemed like a rough neighborhood and we saw some shady characters running toward us...

I made another very illegal U-turn got us outta there hoping we wouldn't make the next day's headline news...

we also drove and ended up in "park N' ride" but there were a couple of slots that read: "Kiss and ride"

we thought that was pretty amusing...

and then, we somehow ended up in Gerogetown...

but because we were having so much fun, yet hungry....we'd just laugh and just followed the road...then, I'd get out and ask for direction to go back to the hotel...

but when we drove by the same sign for the fourth time by Georgetown, I was beginning to start to get worried...

for one, my gas was running low and I hadn't seen a gas station.

for two, we kept on ending up on rough side of the town for some reason.

And here I was, carrying people from Australia and Seattle and Va and I felt responsible for their safety.

one of the funniest thing was whenever I'd make a right turn during the stop light, Lara would yell, "moi!!! SDOUPuh(stop)!!

She kept on forgetting that we were in the U.S and that we DRIVE on the RIGHT side of the street and that she drives on the WRONG side in Australia. LOLOL

We all would say repeatedly how much we loved her accent and she would say, "what accent? you're the ones with the accent..."

by the time we drove by the same sign that read: "Maryland, 35 miles" for the fifth time....we all just burst out laughing for we had been on the road for almost 4 hours now and we were hungry and tired...

finally, by some miracle, we got back to the hotel again and because we all were starving, we were determined to still go to IHOP...we asked the desk clerk again for directions but this time there were two of us listening to the directions...

and voila, it took us less than two minutes to get to THE IHOP....

by the time we headed back to the hotel, it was almost 6am...

but no matter, we have had so much fun...and that little detour of searching for an IHOP would still remain one of the most special part of that trip....

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I hope Lara will come back to the forums soon...sure miss her wonderful presence....her TS connection is her son, who has TS...

BradHawk is one of those awesome TSers that I truly admire...he is always upbeat and happy and sure...he is comfortable with himself and he, like Tom, were some of the most awesomest TSer/people I have ever met...

a couple of years ago, BradHawk came to our wedding...and it probably would've been disastrous if he hadn't been there helping me setting up the chairs...LOLOLOL

he sits on the Seattle TS board...I wish any troubled TSer would be able to meet Bradhawk...he's an inspiration...

he's inspired me. It's too bad he doesn't come to the forums...

here is a post about our weeding.