A week in Washington

Well, for me it was a week in Washington, for Peter and Judy, it was five days, plus a visit to New York. The three of us met at Dulles airport, having all taken different planes from Geneva and Adelaide. It is great to see Judy again after 18 months! She will be with us for nine weeks.

Washington is a beautiful city - leafy and green, nice buildings, and not too big. I was there for work - a meeting on statistical dissemination and communication. Having spent several months helping to organize this meeting, I was looking forward to finally meeting everyone, and also to delivering a paper on the business applications of blogs.

We stayed in a residential area in the south east, about 15 minutes walk from 'the Hill'. It was close to the Eastern Market, and we enjoyed browsing around the stalls and shops. The weather was nice - mid twenties and fairly humid.

The meeting went very well, and my presentation was well received. It was a busy week and I was exhausted by Friday.

While I was working, Peter and Judy were off in New York, enjoying the sights and going to see 'The Color Purple' on Broadway. They had a great time.

One of the highlights of our visit to the US was going to the baseball on the last night we were there. A lovely local, Laurie, took us to see her beloved Washington Nationals play the Milwaukee Brewers. The Nationals lost, but it was exciting to be there and soak in the atmosphere. On the last day we enjoyed a visit to the fairly new National Museum of the Native American.

Today I am off to Spain for another meeting, then two whole weeks of holidays (first long holiday in 18 months - I know we have plenty, but they are usually short). We are going to see a bit of Spain, Italy, spend a week in Greece, see more of Italy, then drive home through Switzerland.

See all the photos of Washington on Flickr (taken with our new beautiful Lumix TZ1 camera).