Weekend Update: Life on the Hill

At the beginning of this month, I finally got over my fear of spending money on living expenses and moved out of MD and into a really excellent community house in the Capitol Hill/Eastern Market area of DC. Yes, it's Southeast -- but around here that means shaded streets and whiffs of lavender from miniscule front yards, an arts workshop and a public library, and fresh produce from the farmers on the weekends (which can be supplemented by Yes! Market natural food store when needed).

I live in a house with 9 other people, most of whom are working on the policy-related nonprofit end of social justice and poverty campaigns. Some are faith-based, but not all; many share international interest and I've learned a lot about some topics I only knew a little about before -- NAFTA in Latin America, U.S. pesticide companies' conflicts of interest in the War on Drugs, debt forgiveness in Africa, and all about German customs, including all-night wedding bashes.

Life in the city hasn't been all gloom and circumstance, though! Here are some fun things I did in the past few weeks that make my days in MD look pretty tame:

• Visiting Dumbarton Oaks in upper Georgetown: a lovely estate turned into a Harvard-run botanic conservatory and center for archaic arts (Byzantine, ancient Greek?). There's an awesome mosaic garden of stones all precisely oriented in swirling patterns and vibrant earthy colors.. and some nice flowers too.
  
• Hitting up one of my favorites in Dupont circle with an old friend (and fellow Merckie) -- Teaism. There are several locations around the city, but their tea-house atmosphere, hot and cold beverage variety, and veg-friendly asian food can't be beat.
• A wandering, though brief, visit to The National Art Gallery. There are so many great things to do on the mall, though I regret that much of the huge, two-building facility seems to be poorly explained by even sparser text. They have nice large-space art installations, and some cutout pieces by Matisse were a good feature, though the Afghanistan exhibit was way too crowded to enjoy properly.
  
• The American Film Institute's SilverDOCS festival in Silver Spring screening of Kassim the Dream. The main character and his coach cum adopted uncle and guiding force stood up during the questions to the director session at the end! Kassim was taken into the army in Uganda as a child and used Boxing as a way to deal with the day-time images of horror that continued to dog him after escaping to the U.S. His story of redemption was funny and packed a punch. The film from the Displaced Person camps in Uganda were particularly powerful.

I'm still working on doing the whole biking to work thing, and I'm looking forward to the Corcoran's exhibit on AIDS photography in Africa called Access to Life and a National's game this Friday. Did I mention I also started up the compost heap here? I'm the resident enviro-nut.. and loving it.

So, consider this your open invite, my readers, to come and do fun things in DC with me -- there is no shortage of them to be had.