Meeting with friends, part 1 by b1bob
Fernando (leftmost in more ways than one) and I arrived in Alexandria on time and my university friend James McGarvey (rightmost) was waiting for us at the King Street metro station. We took the metro straight away for Ballston where yet another university friend T.K. Gore was to meet us. Some will remember that T.K. put me up in his house the night before I went to Greece the previous year (see my McLean page). He wasn't there when we arrived in Ballston, so I rung him up. T.K. had been to a party the previous night and got thoroughly plastered and he hadn't gotten up by 11.00. Although he tried his best to hide it, he looked like two miles of bad road and appeared clearly hung over when he showed up. I can empathise with that feeling as I have gotten plastered a few times whilst I attended university. I promised James (who just had a birthday) and T.K. (who was fixing to have one) that I would take them out to eat. We took a light lunch at Slade's in the Ballston Common shopping centre in Arlington. (That location of Slade's has since closed- Chevy's Tex Mex is in that slot.) Unfortunately, T.K. had to work for a bit that Saturday afternoon, so he left us as soon as we finished. However, James hung on a bit longer and we were off to the Smithsonian. We toured the American History museum which contained exhibits on New Mexico, First Ladies, transport, coinage, Civil Rights, and World War II amongst other things.
