Again I went to the Embassy Open House that is held every year in Washington DC.     This year since I headed down at the last minute I only wanted to go to places I would possibly go to in the future.    The first place I went to was Serbia.     I have no plans to go here and thought I was somewhere else but I remembered this place from a previous year.     I left soon afterwards but it is always a party here and you will be fed here.

From here I left and started walking towards the Embassies along Masschusettes Avenue.      There is a shuttle that will take you to different areas of embassies but I was by myself so the walk wasn’t bad.      When I was walking down I pass an Argentine government building and the reason  I noticed this time because it was named for a general Belgrano.     Belgrano is a neighborhood in Buenos Aires that we went to in 2009.

After a semi long walk and then a long wait in line I made it inside the Austrailian Embassy.     While in line people there was handing out samples of food which was cool.    Inside you could try out more food including samples of vegemite.     Thanks to the heads up from Teri I passed on that.      The other cool thing I saw there was they had some of the animals from Australia there including a medium size python one of the handlers was holding.

On the other side of Massachusettes Avenue were 3 embassies in a row Peru, Trinidad and Chile.     I wanted to check out the Chilean embassy since I would not mind seeing Santiago.      I saw a few animals like alpacas at the Peruvian embassy and you can’t help but hear the party at the Trinidadian embassy.

Wine lovers will love going to the Chilean embassy because they had many different types of wines you can sample and also 2 versions of pisco sour.       The also a display celebratating the Chilean mining rescue.      I like the display of newspapers around the world talking about the rescue.

 

The last thing at the Chilean embassy was they had dancers outside performing.

 

The next to last place I went for the day the Malaysian embassy.    This is one of the prettiest embassies I have ever been in.

 

 

 

While I was there I learned 2 important facts about Malaysia, they export a lot of palm oil which is used in a lot of products around the world including Palmotive soap and they also manufacture a lot of rubber which is used in condoms.

My final stop was the embassy of Pakistan.     I wasn’t planning to go here since I have been here before but every year they seem to have one of the biggest parties.      Here is a pic of a band performing there.

On Sunday we drove down to East Potomac Park .     We did an over 3 mile  walk around the edge the park facing the waterfront.      While we was walking we saw many people out with one of the favorite activities for the day was people fishing.     At the bottom of East Potomac Park is Hains Point where this huge statue, the Awakening, use to be.    Now that statue is at the National Harbor in nearby Oxon Hill Maryland.

While we was walking I was able to take multiple pictures of what I saw from the same spot.

The above picture is the National Cathedral this is probably at least 5 miles away.

 

This is Rosslyn an neighborhood in nearby Arlington County which is right across the river from Georgetown the bridge in the picture below is the Theodore Roosevelt bridge.

 

The Pentagon

The curved towers you see in the background is the Air Force Memorial

 

Above is Crystal City where there are many government agencies have offices here and there is a lot of shopping and restaurants at ground and below ground level.

 

Above is National Airport which is right next to Crystal City.

 

Above is a few of the boats enjoying the nice weather in the Potomac River close to National Airport

 

And finally you have the Woodrow Wilson bridge in the background which connects Maryland and Virginia and even pass through a SMALL part of the District.      And like I said before all of the pics are from the same spot going from North to South.

 

Today we was down at the Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC.   We was suppose to take a tour around the Cherry Blossom area but things got sidetracked.     I have been here many times before but it was still cool being down there and it was a nice day on the first days of spring.    Even though I have been there many times before there was still things I noticed for the first time today.     The number one thing I noticed was the view of the White House I saw from there.

 

Another great view from the Memorial you get is of Arlington Cemetery.     The picture below is of the Lee House at Arlington Cemetery.

 

And of course from here you are next to the Washington Monument.    Right now it is being repaired from the 2011 earthquake.  (yes you read that right) hopefully that will get this fixed soon so this temporary cover will be taken off.

 

Another thing you see from here is people on paddle boats.    Here is a picture of 1 boat out in the tidal basin.     Just a few minutes later the basin had a ton of paddle boats out there.      Also in the background in the pic below is the World War II memorial

This will be a short post but I have to talk about the restaurant I took Teri to for her birthday.      The name of the place is Casablanca and it is in the Old Town section of Alexandria at 1504 King Street.      The food and the entertainment there was great.     We went with friends (this place is better in a group outing so you can try more items) and had a great time.     This is a moroccan restaurant that serves food sorta similar to like going to a Ethiopian restaurant.      That is my guess since I have never been to a Ethiopian restaurant.      I let them know ahead of time that it was for Teri birthday and the whole crew sung to her in a very cool mid eastern version of Happy Birthday.

Everybody in our group enjoyed the food and the belly dancer that was the entertainment for the evening.      I have to really thank the staff who was great for the evening.      I do have to say this may not be the best place to go if on a budget especially if are with heavy drinkers but besides from that you will have a great time.

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.    I know it is a little late but this seems interesting.

Here’s an excerpt:

The new Boeing 787 Dreamliner can carry about 250 passengers. This blog was viewed about 1,600 times in 2012. If it were a Dreamliner, it would take about 6 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

or Old San Juan is a great place to visit and great for walking around.      One warning for the few people who are adverse to our feline friends.

One of the first things that people may do in Viejo San Juan is to visit El Morro or the old fort.     This is one of 2 two major forts in the old town the other one is Castillo San Cristobal.    In the picture below you see the fort on the left hand side with the rest of old San Juan to the right of it.

Be sure to have on comfortable walking shoes because you will do a lot of walking to get here and to get around the fort.     There is a free trolley service from downtown but of course I had to walk to the fort.

There are 6 levels in this fort plus a lighthouse.    I explored parts of 5 of them.     Also you get your usual film which explains the history of the fort which is show every 15 minutes alternating in Spanish and English.

When you walk around the old town you will notice the vivid colors in a lot of the buildings.    Also you will notice that these streets are narrow and hard to drive around and even more difficult to find a place to park or attempt to park in an available spot.

 

Even though we was in San  from the 11th through the 14th of January they still had their Christmas decorations up.      This is a very Catholic area and they just finished their 3 kings celebrations on the 6th.

 

Overall I really enjoyed San Juan and even though I am not sure if I will ever return (the whole flying thing) it is worthy enough for me to consider it.

Wynwood is an area of Miami that was run down but now is up and coming.   the main claim to fame for this area is the art.     There are a lot of studios in this area and tons of great art on the side of the buildings.    I can’t speak for how good the studios are but I am just going to show a bunch of the grafitti that I saw.       This is only a small percentage of great outdoor art in the area.

 

Condado is a ritzy aea of San Juan Puerto Rico that is along the shore.     It is between the main international airport and Old San Juan.    Where we are staying is just a 10 minute walk across the bridge from Condado.

 

The two pictures above are the view of the bridge and also showing the view when walking across.     As you can see the sidewalk is very wide here and the bridge is only a few feet above the water.      There are quite a few hotels in the neighborhood a lot of them in the luxury range.     The Conrad has a few restaurants at their property including one surprising one

yes we did go to the Denny’s here.      It is nicer looking than any Denny’s in the states.     The service was so-s0 (I am being kind)

The Conrad along with a few other hotels here have a casino.     Along with casinos here is where you can do overprice shopping.

 

 

I took the above picture to show the cool park, to show the Renaissance in the background and also show that they still have Christmas decorations up.

 

The final picture is this place that looks like South Beach.

Before we got to Puerto Rico Teri heard about this restaurant called Triana that has flamango dancing.     We was walking around San Juan and since they are so many places to see here we almost forgot about this place but we happened to walked past this place earlier in the day and we saw two of the hostesses of Triana.     They was very friendly and even gave us a tour of the place so we had to make reservations to come back later tonight.

This is inside the Triana on the main level.     Very colorful.       We had reservations for the show that  is downstairs.    Downstairs is very cool because the restaurant is a old bank vault that was converted to a bar that was used during prohibiting time to help people have a drink of booze before the police would come.

The above pic is on the other side of the vault and of our dining area.     Before I talk about the show I have to mention that the meal was great.      We had tapas as our appetizers we shared some type of mofungo dish and some sausages in wine sauce and both items was great and for my main meal I had shrimp and scallops in coconut and honey sauce which was awesome.

Finally we had the flamango show.      The show was great the 4 dancers had incredible energy and they dance to multiple types of music, salsa, tango, rumba just to name a few.     The only bad part was Teri and one of the host made it their effort to get me on the stage to embarrassed me but even that wasn’t too bad.

I have been to Florida a few times before but I have never made it to Little Havana.     First thing I was actually hot.     78 is nice but when you come the land of 40 to 50 degree weather I had to get use to it.

First thing I did was have lunch at a place called La Baguette.   Had the special and had a great lunch outside and in a shady area.     Next was time to explore and drive around.    The Miami Marlins opened up a new ballpark in 2012 and it is just north of Lil Havana.

Have to get a picture of the sign letting me know where I am at.

In 1962 the US tried to force Fidel Castro from power in the Bay of Pigs invasion and was unsuccessful.    I don’t know many

of the details of what happened here so you know where to look to find more info but I did go to the museum here about the invasion

and they also had a few monuments in Lil Havana to document this event.

When you are walking around you see many murals and pictures of famous Cubans and other prominent Latin artists.

Oh yeah I can’t forget if you like cigars this is the place to be.    There have to be at least 10 cigars shops down here and I wasn’t even counting.    Overall I really like the Lil Havana area of Miami which is centered around Calle Ocho or SW 8th Street.    I hope I can also see this area at nighttime.