Weekly update from Washington, D.C.

Dear readers, here's an update from the wonderful Districtvm Colvmbiensis. Life is pretty good, but I'm kind of exhausted after a long-ass week. Here's a completely unrelated picture of an emu, just so you bird-lovers can have something nice to look at.

I've had seminars over at the National Press Building all this week, interrupted by random trips to pretty much everywhere in D.C: Only today, we visited the Supreme Court, The Library of Congress (You know, Wes Pippert wasn't too off when he claimed that the reading room was the most beautiful room in the U.S.) and the National Archives to see the Declaration of Independence and all that. Earlier in the week, we visited a ton of the museums along the Mall, my favorite being of course the arts museum, where I for the first time in my life got to see actual pictures of my all time favorite artist, Roy Lichtenstein. Here is my favorite of the pictures that hang in the arts museum:

Washington has also been absolutely amazing weather-wise, and strolling around D.C. in 60 degree temperatures with the sun shining has been a pure joy.

The seminars were generally really good: My favorite was when Al-Jazeera's Washington bureau chief Hafiz al-Mirazi came to talk to us, only hours after Al-Jazeera published a new tape from Bin-Laden. Al-Mirazi was a very very fascinating and intelligent man, and his inside views on news delivery in the Arab world was extremely interesting.

On a slightly more extra-curricular note, I went on a great jazz concert on Wednesday: Kjetil Møster and his 3-piece band came from Norway to D.C., courtesy of my job. My wonderful employer graciously took me + the band out for a quite delectable meal at a great restaurant in Georgetown, followed by the band playing a concert at Blues Alley. All in all it was a brilliant night, and I guess free concerts and such is yet another perk with working with cultural issues.

Oh, by the way, poor Abraham is staying at my place, since he's temporarily homeless. He's a great guy, I'm just hoping the fold-out couch he's sleeping on won't give him permanent back damage.

That, dear readers, is it from me tonight. It's been a long week, now I look forward to a - hopefully - extremely laid-back weekend. I have a bunch of projects and such I have to wrap up, so I'll probably stay in at the Towers most of the time.