Friday, May 21, 2010

my day out

Yesterday was glorious. I met up with a friend, Dee, and she drove us to lunch in her cute, old-school Volvo. That's right VOLVO. If you're thinking about a souped-up 1992 baby that Dee's father drove off a parking lot in Europe, yes you are right. (PS. The picture on the left is not a picture of her car, but just a picture of a 1992 Volvo to demonstrate its antique 90's class.) Volvo means "I roll" from the infinite verb of volvere. We rolled.

Because both Dee and I were bad at directions, it was fail when Google Maps lied, to our chagrin. Nevertheless like good sports, we cursed Larry Page and Sergey Brin for fooling us with their marketing brilliance and popped open the GPS on Dee's phone. What should have been a 10 minute drive ended up being a 20 minute drive around Fairfax County in Northern Virginia. It was all good though, because both of us were just using the trip as an excuse for human conversation and I was getting a great tour of Northern Virginia.

On the side note, Northern Virginia is the worst nightmare for an urban development major. I am not an urban development major, but even I could see that having construction everywhere at the same time is not a smart idea. We saw more orange construction signs than regular green ones, and I swear they were building an overpass directly over a couple of business buildings. The roads are also confusing as heck. One road changed names three times. Why would you do that?

A reoccurring theme in Dee's and my conversation was the fact that we were bored college students at home. Dee is going to travel to South Korea on a Department of State scholarship in June, and I was home for only a week before heading back to Charlottesville. Yet we both found ourselves immeasurably bored at home. We were used to going down the hall and finding six people with whom to talk. At home, I sang along with my Glee show and Dee talked to her cat. Both did not make very scintillating conversation.

Another thing was the realization that I was a college student in a town that wasn't a university town. Two days ago I went for a run in the morning and decided to head to a nearby high school, hoping that the high school had a track. Having arrived at the school's parking lot, I was approached by a security officer. To sum our encounter up, he rudely told me to not trespass while school was in session and then followed me in his car a good 800m into a side road. While I was duly offended by his tone and lack of manners, I also realized that he had a good point in that it was 10:32am and it was probably third period. I forgot that students were still in class. Dee and I relished this truth as we sped down 66.

We ended up going to Jammin Java in Vienna, VA, which has live music every night. Apparently Kina Grannis is going to perform there on June 15th! Kina is one of those guitar goddesses on Youtube, and I stumbled upon her while searching Missy Higgins (Where I Stood). She does collaborations (My Time with You, w David Choi), covers (If I Were a Boy), and her own originals (Valentine). While I was ogling Kina's flyers, we were both munching on some huge sandwiches (Dee got fresh mozzarella and tomato and I got homemade chicken salad) and still talking.

I think we talked for four hours straight. After Jammin Java, we went to Shilla Bakery, which is known for their sweets, breads, and shaved ice treats (called bingsoo), in Annandale, VA. We didn't order a bingsoo (but I'll post a picture of one on right to show the glorious goodness of what we could have had), and had little baked hazelnut treats instead. Both of our voices were sore afterward, because we just kept on talking and laughing! This probably goes back to the human need for conversation..