Way too early
Actual date: August 12, 2009
Day one of our 2009 D.C. trip, and we’re on our way! We woke up at 5:30 a.m., which is much too early for us, but the only non-stop flight to D.C. is at 8 a.m. so we did what we had to do.
Way too happy to be up so early
A friend of ours took us to the airport in good time, and we got through check-in and security without a hitch. The $15 charge per checked bag was an unpleasant surprise that early in the morning. Apparently it could’ve been worse though. The lady helping us at the self check-in counter thought it would be $20 per bag, commenting that we probably got a discount for early booking. We flew on Comair/Delta, so maybe it’s just for the smaller Delta flights that you have to pay for your checked bag. Regardless, flying is getting more expensive and less comfortable.
Breakfast extraordinaire
Case in point: our in-flight “meal”. As we didn’t have time to get breakfast, this is what passed for breakfast on the flight. Decent enough ginger snap cookie and the Sprite was fizzy, but come on! But enough bellyaching about the unpleasantness of domestic flights (Singapore Airline’s snacks in between real meals put this to shame, and they even fed us a real meal on a 1-hour flight!). It is what it is, and if you don’t like it you can always drive for half a day instead of flying for 2 hours. Or fly to another country on a nicer airline that will feed you real food.
Asleep
Just kidding
Thankfully Sofia eventually got a bit of a nap on the flight to get her somewhat back on schedule sleep-wise. Throughout the week she would demonstrate her resilience and flexibility by staying up with us until 10-11 p.m. and beyond, grab naps while sitting in her stroller whenever she needed to, and just generally being her usual non-fussy self. We couldn’t have asked for a better child to travel with.
In D.C.
We arrived in D.C. about 30 minutes ahead of schedule, so Denise and Sofia grabbed a quick breakfast-y item (don’t remember what they got and didn’t get a snap of it–falling down on the blogging job already) and relaxed for a while in the baggage claim area before heading out by cab to Susie’s office for our lunch rendezvous. I had originally planned to go by Metro, but Susie dissuaded me of that idea, and I’m glad we went by cab instead. Even with Susie’s extra pair of hands helping us with our luggage after lunch on the way back to her house, we were still over-encumbered on the Metro, so you can imagine how bad it would’ve been with just Denise and I dragging all that stuff plus Sofia on the Metro on the way to Susie’s office. We had 1 large and 1 smaller suitcase, duffle bag, laptop bag, camera bag, purse/bag, stroller, and car seat. The $25 cab ride including tip was well worth the extra cost.
At Susie's office
We parked our stuff at Susie’s office and waited for her to finish up a few things before heading out for lunch.
Meeting new people
We got to meet Susie’s co-workers at her office. They were happy to finally meet Sofia, as they’ve become familiar with her face from the many photos of her that Susie has shown them. Sofia promptly conveyed to them her need to get on the phone and check her e-mail as well as see the animals at the zoo. In the photo Sofia is trying to figure out what’s so great about the Altoids mint one of Susie’s co-workers gave her (you can’t see it very well in the picture, but her brow is scrunched up). I think she still doesn’t know what the fuss is about.
Art
And before we left, Sofia entertained us with her impromptu interpretive dance number, no doubt inspired by the work of art behind her.
On a photographic note, this was our first trip using the Olympus E-P1 as the primary camera. I also brought my Canon 5D with a few lenses, but the plan was for it to serve very limited duty–ultra wide angle (don’t have such a lens for the E-P1 yet) and low light portraiture (no E-P1 lens for that either)–with the E-P1 pulling most of the weight. I’ll have a more complete report on how the E-P1 performed after I’ve finished posting about the trip, but for now I’ll just say that I was very happy with it. Not at all surprised by any of the pros and cons of using it as a main travel camera; just very happy with it.