An Austrian friend of mine came to visit the US a couple of weeks ago and made a stop in DC before flying back home. I tried to show him as much of DC as possible without wearing ourselves into the ground, and aside from the first night when we attended a Washington Nationals baseball game, at the end of every day came the pub. The first place we went to was Cleveland Park Bar and Grill. Though cooler temperatures had settled in, it was still warm enough to sit on the rooftop there. Except we couldn't. They closed it because temperatures were in the sixties. Now explain to me how a people who sit in freezing, wasteful airconditioning all day long couldn't handle the fresh sixty degree air? The older I get, the less I understand this country known as the United States of America.
Instead of enjoying the view of a lively street, we had to sit inside a swirl of televised stuffiness, a box of waving colors flying out from every space on its sides. Where there were no televisions on the walls, there were mirrors like those in my photo, so there was no way one could avoid the glaring football games tackling the eyes of the bar's patrons. It is natural when one sees movement in his peripheral line of sight that he turns to see what that movement is. Makes it pretty tough to have a normal conversation when eyes instinctively dart from side to side while trying to drink in a den of sportive kinetics.
On the next night we went to a couple of places, one a nicer restaurant, and even it had a television at its bar. My friend noticed this trend immediately and thought it an oddity. I do, too. Why is it that we can't go anyplace without being bombarded by television?
I look forward to a break from this televised excess in Bulgaria. My real point of writing about this, however, was not to complain about it but rather to have an excuse for posting the photo somewhere. I just like it!
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