Arrh! The OLD MAN and the SEA! Ouh, and 2 celebrity sightings!

Ah! So what can be more magnificent than escaping the heat and drive-by shootings of Washington and spending a Sunday sailing! Yes, being an old man now, I hear the calling of the sea, and I yearn for the smell of sea weed and jellyfish!

So today, I went with Divya - my old Missouri buddy - and Andrea - my new UNF buddy - to Andrea's home town, Annapolis, Md., for a day of maritime fun. Annapolis is apparently the sailing capital of the world, and is where the Whitbread (fine, the more precise term is the "Volvo Ocean Race") sailors stop when they're in the U.S. It was briefly the U.S. capital (in the late 1700s), and is also home to the huge enormous U.S. Naval Academy.


Here are Andrea and Divya, having dinner on our way towards the Chesapeake bay!


Ye Olde Sailors hoisting the sail, while the captain was singing jolly shipper shanties with heavily pronounced R's. I must admit the trip made me miss the old trips on the Larsson sailboat, with LG's steady hand on the rudder, and Nils finding unpleasant ways to measure our speed. This was pretty cool too, though, and it was really nice to be near the ocean again - it's been a while. Although, of course, come September, I'll actually be living on an island, which is something I've never tried before.. Thor the Islander!

Celebrity sighting no. 1: This is the actual boat that the sailing scenes from the "Wedding Crashers" took place aboard. Apparently, Christopher Walken isn't much of a sailor, so when that picture was taken, someone was actually lying on the floor of the boat holding the wheel. In fact, the whole movie is set in the Washington area, so yeah, if you ever want to visit, we can go see Vince Vaughn's house in Georgetown. Speaking of which: Celebrity sighting no. 2: So I went out last night with some people from my last work place, and George Clooney had dinner at the same time as us at the Sequoia Restaurant on the Georgetown Waterfront.

Me and Andrea. Unfortunately, the Chesapeake Bay is not too conducive for swimming - it's pretty polluted and full of aggressive and unpleasant jellyfish - so we had to stay aboard the ship, even though it was pretty damn hot out there.

Dude, I thought Oslo had a lot of sail boats, but this place was just ridiculous. But then again, they probably don't call it the sailing capital of the world because there are so few sailboats there.

Actually, parts of Annapolis really looked like good old Oslo, or at least some Norwegian coastal place, although I think - or at least hope - that the water quality at home is a little better than here.

Anyway, Annapolis was a really cute little colonial-style town, with all these nice old row-houses. Yeah yeah, I'm a modernist and functionalist at heart, but it's still pretty meat.

Annapolis is also home to the U.S. Naval Academy, a huge enormous college campus that churns out the finest American navy sailors, amidst some amazing scenery. Here is the grand entrance to the memorial hall.

Of course, getting into this military installation required the help and guidance of Derek, an old friend of Andrea's, who gave us the grand tour of the campus. Derek, by the way, had just spent the summer 1) being attacked by sharks (!)(I kid you not) and 2) winning the world Military Triathlon Championships, which is kind of a big deal. Anyway, he was a great guy, and we had a very nice afternoon there, in spite of some random rain showers. By the way, doesn't my neck look really long? Thor the Giraffe.

Of course, there is no better way to end such a great day than spending half the evening in the mother of all traffic jams on our way back to D.C. Apart from that, however, it was truly a wonderful day by the seaside!