From Longaniza to Hot dog, Part 6. Memories of Places and Faces

This is me in front of the Washington Monument in the seventies.

After I read my piece on places I lived at while I was in Washington DC during one of our life writers group meeting, Margaret, one of the members, asked me what I did for fun while in the nation's capital. She herself stayed in the same city and mentioned several places she visited and parks she took strolls in.

When I thought about what I did aside from study and do research in the lab during my stay in the nation's capital as a grad student at the George Washington University (GWU) from 1974 to 1977, the images that came to me were not only the places but faces of people that made my whole experience in this tourist spot fun.

My memories of those times were against the beautiful backdrop of the city's beautiful landmarks. First of all let me tell you how a friend's son who was a taxi driver nicknamed the city's famous tourist spots. He called the White House, the Clown Box, the Washington Monument, the Pencil and something else obscene, and the Kennedy Center, the Kleenex Box. The monickers he coined are pretty fitting especially the first one considering its present main occupant.

GWU is just a few minutes walk from all of these edifices. I remember having picnics with Filipino friends eating adobo and rice at the grounds where the Washington Monument was. I used to go grocery shopping at the supermarket of the infamous Watergate apartment complex close to the Kennedy Center. I walked past by the White House on my way to shop downtown. None among my friends had any car and the Metro was not constructed yet then.  I wore out several shoes I brought with me from the Philippines those two and half year stay in this city from walking long distances.

I loved visiting the museums in DC and I was glad I had Lawrence that went with me to visit them. He was an undergrad from Hongkong who was in one of my classes. He was younger than me and quite boyish looking. We were sort of an item and another jealous admirer from Iran, Amir, referred to him as somebody so small I could fit him in my pocket.

The favorite past time of a Filipino friend, Lily, that was affordable for me a grad student with a meager stipend, was walking to Georgetown and just window shopping and then capping the day with a double scoop of the fabulous ice cream from one of the fancy creameries. I should not forget to mention we also window shopped for shoes at stores with blaring music where my friend Lily would take her Spanish friend who was with us to dance right there in the store when salsa or meringue music came on.

When I was writing my thesis I asked a friend, Irma, to draw the glass apparatus I helped built with Doreen, another grad student which we called KATE which if my memory is right stood for Kinetic Apparatus for Trifluroethylene Experiments. After spending hours of drawing the apparatus, Irma and I got hungry and the only money we had was Irma's spare coins. We decided to go to the Ruby Restaurant in Chinatown for dumplings. Irma did have a car so we safely got there close to midnight.

I spent hours doing research at my adviser Dr. King's lab doing work on a compound similar to the miracle cancer drug, fluorouracil or 5-FU. Since the gas chromatograph that we used for analysis was in demand, I would take the night shift to use it. One evening one undergrad who adored the Grateful Dead offered to bring me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I could not believe I trusted him despite him having a friend whose grocery list I happened to read listed buying hallucinogens as one of them. Yes I was in DC during times when people smoked funny things and did make love. I did not do either one but I still had fun doing simple stuff.

Seville, my roommate at the first apartment I stayed in, and I baked cakes from boxed mix and prepared casserole from ground beef patties with cream of mushroom and Lipton onion soup mix. We served this to our guests in our living room with our beds serving as the seating area. This is the same room where in the middle of the night, to her chagrin I would ask her questions like "What is life". I prepared a complete turkey dinner at this same apartment which had a separate kitchen for a former suite mate at the grad dorm at GWU, Mary, for thanksgiving. It was my first time to bake a turkey evident by the fact the wrapper with its neck and gizzard was still left in the cavity when I served it.

I was a foodie even then so food I ate are forever in my memory. I loved Manang Cris' spaghetti with mixed vegetables she was proud of at her apartment and the chicken mole during the Friday ukelele soiree at Dawn's place. She was another grad student who was married to a really funny Mexican, Al, who loved playing ukelele all night with the undergrad Mexican students at GWU.  Other dishes I loved eating were Lawrence's green pepper steak and Merle and sister Lily's tuna casserole served with beer biscuit.

Despite having no formal kitchen in the last place I stayed in at DC, I was able to prepare chicken afritada made of fresh tomatoes, green and red pepper I brought back from Philadelphia where I, Seville and Manang Cris attended the International Eucharistic Congress.  We got there courtesy of Mitchell from the lab who could not get over how much food we brought in his car and ate on the way there and the produce we brought back. I served this iconic Filipino dish with rice and pancit, a noodle dish, to the professors and lab mates to celebrate my having successfully passed my prelims. We ate picnic style right on the grounds of GWU in front of Corcoran Hall which housed the chemistry department.

This beautiful city was not always a fun place. On weekends it was quite dead with old people with their shopping carts walking the streets talking to themselves. Everybody in town preferred to go out of town including Lily who always took me with her to Baltimore to stay over the weekend with her relatives. One time when I came home to my apartment it felt so solitary and lonely I even welcomed the sight of the cockroaches running in my apartment. On most days the bustle in the lab and the company of the other graduate students and the outings with Filipino friends kept my stay memorable and a happy one. It really was not only the places at DC that mattered but the faces that came with it.

Below is what I wrote at the back of the first picture shown above.

Looking back, no question about it I did have good luck. I started making my dreams come true at an amazing place in the company of wonderful friends.

Note:  This is Part 6 of the series From Longaniza to Hot Dog which recounts my immigration to the United States from the Philippines. You might want to read the following:

From Longaniza to Hot Dog Part 1 Brooklyn and Sao Paolo
From Longaniza to Hot Dog Part 2 Muito Obrigada and Baden Baden
From Longaniza to Hot Dog Part 3 Life Changing Question
From Longaniza to Hot Dog Part 4 Second Thoughts
From Longaniza to Hot Dog Part 5 Places I Lived At In Washington DC