It’s interesting being in a real city — Austin feels like a kid playing dress-up compared to Washington. I especially love the history and diversity. Yesterday, Jeff and I stopped at a Nam-Viet, a Vietnamese restaurant in Cleveland Park for a quick bite. While most things are fast paced in D.C., the waiters at this restaurant were in no hurry and Jeff had to run out for a sales appointment right before our meal came out.

We ordered Pho Bo (beef strips, flat rice noodles, green onions, cilantro, parsley, plum sauce, spicy sauce) and Grilled Shrimp and Scallops. I enjoyed them in silence while listening to conversations in various languages around me — mostly about the recent election and the economy.

I spent a month in Vietnam after college and remember being quite disappointed with the majority of the food we ate there. Still a communist country, tourism is tightly controlled and we were often served Chinese fried rice for our meals. Vietnamese food in the U.S. has been much better for me but I’m sure I would have enjoyed the food in Vietnam more had I checked out more of the street stalls.

I wandered around Cleveland Park until Jeff was finished with his appointment and when I picked him up he was starving having not eaten breakfast that day. He scarfed up his half in mom’s car and exclaimed over and over how delicious it was — especially the seafood. People eat a lot in their cars here, I startled a woman last night by taking her picture while she was calmly munching on a sandwich and making a right-hand turn. Unfortunately the photo didn’t turn out but we all had a good laugh.