Strongbow is now available at Whole Foods Market on P Street. Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah!
A four pack of 500mL cans runs around $7.50.

And yes, whenever I find Strongbow in DC I am going to post about it. So far, you can purchase Strongbow at:
- Fado Irish Pub in Chinatown (draft)
- Elephant & Castle Pub (draft)
- Finn macCool’s Irish Publick House (draft)
- 51st State Tavern (draft)
- Chevy Chase Wine & Spirits (500 mL cans)
- Circle Liquors (500 mL cans)
- Whole Foods Market on P Street (500 mL cans)

If you know of a place in DC that sells Strongbow and it’s not on my list, let me know.

I’ve been back from NYC for a few days, but am finally getting around to posting the photos.

I was in NYC because it was Liz’s bacholerette weekend, and what better place to spend a bachelorette weekend than NYC?

We took the Acela “express” train from Washington, DC on Saturday morning and arrived in NYC by noon. After some shopping, we had dinner (Indian food, helllll yeah) and then saw “Avenue Q” which was freakin hilarious. Seriously, if you are going to see a show in NYC, you should check out Avenue Q…it’s like a puppet show for adults. After the show, we went to an Irish pub called Scruffy Duffy’s. It just so happened that this pub was filled with sailors in their dress whites…very drunk sailors who insisted on taking a million photos of Liz when they learned that she was a bride-to-be. Here’s a sample of these photos:

After the Irish pub, we headed down to Greenwich Village and eventually ended up at a piano bar called Marie’s Crisis. For those of you who have no idea what exactly a piano bar is (like me, until this weekend), it’s basically a bunch of people singing along with a guy playing showtunes on a piano. As you could imagine, it was quite a change of scenery from the testosterone-fueled, sailor filled Irish pub we had just come from. I should also mention that I know absolutely no show tunes…the guy was playing stuff from Cabaret, Chicago, Sound of Music, etc…and I really don’t know any of those songs, which is probably for the better because you DO NOT want to hear me sing. Nevertheless, Marie’s Crisis was incredibly fun. We got back to our hotel a little after 3am, after a hellish wait for a subway. Let me just tell you that I HATE the NYC subway…HATE HATE HATE IT.

The next day we had lunch at the Carnegie Deli (I opted for the pastrami…apparently the best in the world, or something like that). The sandwiches there are HUGE:

We had a few hours before our train left for DC, so we went to the Museum of Modern Art. It was a good museum, although not as cool as the Tate Modern.

I’m going back to NYC in mid-June for a work-related event, but I doubt I’ll be coming back from that trip with pictures similar to the ones in this post.

I’m going to New York City for Liz’s bachelorette weekend. I haven’t been to NYC since 2000, when I spent a weekend working for Hillary Clinton’s campaign (I don’t actually like her – I just wanted to visit NYC, as this Californian had never been there before, and the College Dems were offering a free trip).

Be back on Sunday.

So I read this Washington Post article, and it said that the American Interests section in Havana put a huge scrolling LED sign on the side of the building so they could “broadcast” anti-Castro messages and the wit of George Burns. American diplomats hope that the Cuban people, upon seeing a George Burns quote, will immediately overthrow Castro and welcome back all those patriotic exiles sitting on their asses in Miami. Your tax dollars at work! Well, Castro would just have none of that, so he ordered the installation of 148 flag poles (and flags, obviously) to block the billboard and its subversive messages:

The messages in Havana are diverse. There is cheeky commentary: zany musician Frank Zappa opining that “communism doesn’t work because people like to own stuff.” There are biting observations, such as George Orwell’s satirical take on communism from “Animal Farm”: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” And there are lengthy document dumps, such as the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, with lines such as “Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.”

Now here is what amuses me in regards to this last quote…let’s say I left the United States and traveled to Havana for a nice relaxing vacation on the beach. When I arrived back in the United States, relaxed, tanned and liquored up on mojitos, I would have to submit my customs declaration. If I didn’t write “Cuba” on the list of countries I visited, I would be lying to the federal government, which I’m sure is kinda against the law. If I was honest, and declared that I did visit Cuba, I could go to jail for 10 years and be forced to pay a $250,000 fine. (No joke, look it up on the Treasury Department’s website). WHAT RIGHT DOES THE U.S. GOVERNMENT HAVE TO TELL ME WHERE I CAN AND CANNOT TRAVEL TO?

According to the U.S. Government, I am free to travel to North Korea:

U.S. passports are valid for travel to North Korea and individuals do not need U.S. Government permission to travel there. All transactions ordinarily incident to travel to, from and within North Korea and to maintenance within North Korea are authorized. U.S. travel service providers are authorized to organize group travel to North Korea, including transactions with North Korean carriers.

…but I can’t visit Cuba? I am no fan of Castro, but seriously, WTF? I swear to god, I’m on the verge of becoming a libertarian. I am going to visit Cuba sometime within the next few years, and I’m not getting some goddamn bureaucrat’s permission to go. So, if you want to visit Cuba, let me know and we can break the law together (and hopefully avoid that 10 year prison sentence)!

I finally booked my plane ticket to Yerevan today. I’m leaving DC on the evening of July 4 and coming back on July 15. On my way to Yerevan, and my way back to DC, I have 7+ hour layovers in London. As such, I intend to hop the Heathrow Express and have a few pints at a pub in Paddington in between my flights.
Why Armenia? I have two friends that currently work there – one for the U.S. State Department, and another for NDI. And how could you pass up the opportunity to visit a former Soviet republic? If all goes as planned, we may make a quick trip across the border to Tbilisi in order to enjoy some khachapuri and Georgian wine. My roommate, Laura, will be joining me (her first time in the former Soviet Union…always an interesting experience) and Crystal might fly out to Yerevan for a few days. Should be an interesting trip.

Also, I’m thinking of flying to Kiev for the Thanksgiving holiday so I can go on the Pripyat-Chernobyl tour. It’s actually cheaper to fly to Ukraine than to Palm Springs (figures, eh?) If anyone out here on the east coast is up for the trip, let me know and we’ll start hashing out the details.

For anyone looking for Strongbow in the DC area, Chevy Chase Wine and Spirits now carries Strongbow in 500ml cans. Laura and I bought the last case on Saturday, but I’m sure they will have more in soon enough.