Sorry to be posting two blogs simultaneously- as I was flying over to the states this weekend I didn’t get the chance to post the last one till now.

Being completely honest my weekend didn’t start very well, the water in my hotel stopped running on the Friday night just as I was about to start rising the shampoo out my hair; I secondly got stuck in extremely, unexpected, heavily traffic on the way to the airport; at check in, even though I’d removed quarter of the things I’d travelled down to London with my bags ever very strangely heavier and required a fair bit of adjustment before they were accepted onto my flight; I then had a bit of stressful time at security- random bag search; and then to top it off, my and the last, tuna toastie at the coffee shop was burnt to cinders. Determined to put everything behind me I walked up to the boring gate cheerful as possible, I handed over my boarding card- there seemed to be a problem- the lady at the desk checked the computer then called over a colleague, my cheerful demeanour was just about to crack when I was informed I had be upgraded to Upper Class! First class on Virgin Atlantic was certainly something else, fully reclining seats, 3 course lunch, afternoon tea complete with scones and jam! It was amazing!

On Sunday I ventured in the city which is magnificent; I had a quick run around all the main sights, stopping periodically in museums, which all free, to cool down or buy some water. (There’s a heat wave right now and temperatures yesterday and today are hitting 37C.) My favourite sight was the Lincoln Memorial, the size of it is overwhelming and it a really does feel like appropriately significant. The Reflecting Pool leads up the Lincoln Memorial, the pool is famous for protests and political demonstrations unfortunately the only protests I saw was homeless looking man sitting with a shopping trolley which held a few slightly ill looking cat and many black bin bags; his entire campaign seemed to consist of a cardboard sign which read “Save the cats, we need $$”, not quite the rally I had in mind.

Today was I was at work, it was great meeting everyone who I’d spoken to many times on the phone. I was kindly given my own office, which is massive like almost everything in DC. I’m continuing with the contact database project which is making great progress- I am very excited about the weeks ahead.