Annapolis

Settling In
1/10/08

After a year of travel, it’s nice to finally stop.

A five-day cross-country drive (from Phoenix to San Antonio driving one car and from there to Maryland in two), brought us to our current home of Annapolis on the 5th of January. Bill and Genevieve were there to greet us and make us feel welcome with flowers, wine and the essentials for preparing our first meal. We unpacked our bags, leaving the unloading of car trunks for later, showered and changed, and headed out to a nearby Italian restaurant for our first dinner in our new neighborhood. The first couple of days, were also welcomed by unseasonably warm weather (as high as 70°) which made it comfortable to explore our new community by foot. The above photos are of our new neighborhood (how nice of them to keep the Christmas decorations up for us).

I hadn’t realized how tiring our drive had been until I awoke the next day at 10 AM and realized I had slept eleven hours straight. Perhaps it was a combination of being travel weary and the relief of finally being in our own place after so long.

Downtown historic Annapolis is one of the most charming towns I know and we feel fortunate to have found a place here. Being boaters and loving the water, we feel so at home. Also the close proximity to D.C. is wonderful since I spent thirty years living and working in the Northern Virginia/D.C. area and that also feels like home. In fact, our very first week here, using the excuse of dropping off our printer for repair, we found ourselves headed for an exhibit at the Corcoran Art Gallery. After spending a few hours enjoying two extraordinary photographic exhibits - Annie Leibovitz and Ansel Adams - we completed the perfect day by having a late lunch at one of our favorite haunts, - The Old Ebbitt Grille. The following Wednesday found me, accompanied by Genevieve, again in the city attending a Harman Center for the Arts brown-bag lunchtime performance of the Tehreema Mitha Dance Company. Tehreema Mitha started, in 1993, the only dance company that has existed in Pakistan, but later came to the U.S. seeking more choreographic freedom. Her work, in the world of Asian Dance, defuses the line between what was considered classical and what would be considered contemporary. We thoroughly enjoyed it.

The winter weather was soon upon us and we were thankful we had spent time our first week buying some warm clothing and boots. Our second week here, I walked out of the grocery story and was greeted by a beautiful winter wonderland with big fat wet snowflakes coming down, blanketing the parking lot and already making my car a big white blob. With no snow scraper (I put that on the list) I laughed as I scraped the snow from the windows with the first thing if saw - a map of San Diego. Bet it was never used for that purpose before.