forget all your cares and go downtown

last week i was in a four-day training course for work, which was... well, not nearly as painful as it could have been, all things considered. i was actually geekily excited for it, because it was held in downtown D.C., which meant i'd get to take the metro to work every day.

i realize that for those who take public transportation every day, it should read more like "i'd "get" to take metro," but when you live right next to the metro - no exaggeration, my window looks directly at the park & ride, and it's literally less than 500 feet from my room to the metro platform - it's pretty lame to have to instead get in my car every morning and drive 20 miles out into the boonies.

so for me, this meant not only getting to use the metro and READ on my commute every day (hooray for new kindles!), it also meant i would be downtown during the magical happy hour time to which i am so often invited yet can never make it, thanks to working in the opposite direction and thus being unable to get back to the city before happy hour is over.

you guys. happy hour in dc is AWESOME. $5 specialty martinis at DC Coast?! yes, please.

i also got to take advantage of an offer of free caps tickets since i was already downtown, and MAN was that fun. it's only the second hockey game i'd been to, and the seats were QUITE an improvement over the last time i was watching hockey in the verizon center.

and man, caps fans are FUN. the arena was pretty much a solid wall of red - check out the picture below, which for unexplained reasons came out weird and extra-poor quality, despite being taken by the same phone as the other pictures. plus, every time the caps score, the entire stadium chants in unison and points at the visiting goalie, which i imagine must be pretty demoralizing.

to sum up: anyone know of any job openings downtown? because DC happy hours aren't going to drink themselves.