in this week's edition of passport to dc...

our weekly llc meeting yielded exciting results! here are the cliff's notes:

next wednesday, november 4th -- international games night in the new hall basement. come around, play games from different countries, eat some delicious baked goods. have a jolly good time.

(tentative, pending approval) saturday, november 14th -- international bbq in kogan plaza. food from around the world, live music! come dance salsa and learn about the llc!

saturday, november 21st -- complimentary llc field trip to the newseum, thanks to our lovely coordinators. remember to assign a person to your room to message val the number of people from your room who will be attending.

in other news,

hunger and homelessness week is happening the 16th-20th of november. there's a nonperishable food drive happening all week, so be sure to donate some canned/dry goods! there'll be a receptacle for them in the new hall lobby.
also, that wednesday there will be a banquet happening in marvin center. the idea is that you're assigned to be rich or poor, and what food you get depends on what your label is. should be fun :)
talk to cristina for more details.

and don't forget to talk to chris about taking your llc pictures! he says he'll be in the photo lab next friday (the 6th).

for passport to dc, this is nicole, signing out.

Hey Guys!

Thought this would be a good spot to tell you about this past weekend. Natalie and I went to Barcelona with two of our other friends from GW to visit Sean, a former LLC member. The weekend was awesome. Barcelona is a beautiful city with a rich cultural history. Sean (which I'm sure Val could expand upon) told us all about the Catalan separatist movement and it's relationship with Madrid and the rest of Spain. I've been to Barcleona before, but it still struck me as odd that they speak a language other than Spanish. Here are some pictures from our weekend. We miss you all!!!

Sangrada Familia: Translated as "Sacred Family," Antonio Gaudi designed this cathedral. They started building it in the early 20th century and it still isn't finished today because its construction relies soley on donations.

Park Guell: My favoite thing in Barcleona (Val can tell you)! Gaudi also designed this and it's all composed of mosaics.

Placa Espanya: At the top is a museum of Catalan history, but it has an awesome view of the city.

And at night has a hydro/light show.

Turkish Festival

This weekend at Metro Center the American Turkish Association organized their annual Turkish Festival! Dave and I went on Sunday afternoon to check it out. Most of the booths there were food, although there were a few booths selling traditional Turkish jewelry, crafts and foods. We each got a Doner, a sandwich made from thinly sliced meat, onions, tomatoes, etc. in a pita, and I tried Ayran, a salty drink made from yogurt. It was a beautiful day and a great way to avoid the sunday homework blues.

Keep your eyes peeled for more festivals coming up!

Nick

recap

it's been a great couple of weeks, team! first off, i have one word for you all:

POTLUCK.

it was incredible and everything was so delicious, so thanks to everyone who contributed something. needless to say, there were no leftovers. among the foodstuffs brought were: beer-battered tilapia, pork tenderloin, key lime bars, kung pow chicken (or some variant -- either way, it was so good), etc etc. i'm so hungry remembering it all.

also in the food realm, we had a group dinner this week which consisted of rice & beans, plátanos maduros (sweet plantains), chicken with mushroom & white wine sauce, sweet carrots, and mashed potatoes. mmmm...

karla did a mexican dinner for us one night and she made tostadas mexicanas (or tinga), which were SO SO GOOD. she also explained proper eating etiquette (which involves plenty of oil running down your hands and dripping all over the place).

in non-food news, we attended a party hosted by the south asian llc in which a bunch of us got sweet henna designs on our hands. we're looking forward to collaborating with them and having them teach us how to do henna!

i think that's all for now, so i'm outtt

sunglasses, cars, chocolate, outerwear, and parisian girls.

Banned Books Week '09

"For a country that venerates its First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech, the United States tries to ban books with alarming frequency.

Stick a pin in each place where there's been a challenge to a school or library book, and you'll have a map of the United States that looks like a hedgehog in need of a haircut.

This year already, challenges have been reported from Montana to Indiana to Texas, in high schools and libraries, and from classics like Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, to newer books like Brent Hartinger's The Geography Club and Chris Crutcher's Chinese Handcuffs."

(Read the rest here: The Huffington Post)

For a list of books banned by governments, click here.

Exercise your first amendment rights! Read a banned book!

Hey guys!

The Russian Rock presentation is going on tonight at 6:15 in Philips 210. It should be really fun and a great chance to listen to some music you've probably never heard of before, so get exciteddd

For whoever isn't in class or whatever, we'll be meeting up in my room (410) at 5:45 and head over together to see the presentation.

Hope to see you all there!

AFI Latin American Film Fesitval

The Latin American Film Festival kicked of in Maryland this weekend. I'd brought up the possibility of heading over to catch one or two movies before it wraps up on October 6th. They've worked out more definitive titles and showtimes since the last time we talked about it so check out the options and let me know if anyone's interested!

Films, showtimes, all that good stuff.

Looks like it's just the two of us now

Foreign eye candy, picked ripe from the vine. More to come.

graphic for the 90th anniversary of the Bauhaus museum in Berlin

fun fact:

according to cnn.com, facebook is almost as large as the USA population!

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/09/16/facebook.profit/index.html

crazy, isn't it?

:)

VIVA MEXICO!

A day like today, 188 years ago, Mexico, led by Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, won their independence from Spain. During this day Hidalgo proclaimed the battle cry known as Grito de Dolores, from which the famous saying of VIVA MEXICO comes from. It is tradition for the President of the Republic to reenact the well known Grito from the balcony of the National Palace at El Zocalo, Mexico City and for proud mexicans to gather at la Plaza de la Constitucion, also at el Zocalo, to watch him. As you can imagine, mariachis, tequila, and Corona or Cerveza Sol play a very important role in the celebration that began yesterday night and lasts all day today.

Swing by our meeting today to celebrate the Independence of my beautiful (AWESOME!) country with some mexican appetizers while listening to some mariachis.

Y que VIVA MEXICO CABRONES! VIVAAAAA!!

Karla :)

hey, guys!

so the DJ who was playing at First Friday (who played mostly awesome awesome funk music) is throwing/DJ-ing a breakdancing event up at UMD on Saturday. if anyone wants in, it's just a hop on the metro away.

let me knowww

Open House Art Festival!

The Kennedy Center, which is always bringing great performance art to Washington, DC, is having hosting the Open House Art Festival this weekend, which includes street performers from France, Australia, Canada, and the DC area. Various FREE shows will be going on Saturday from 12 to 7.

Here's some samples from the program:

1:15-1:45 p.m., & 4:15-4:45 p.m.

La Voile

Aerialist performs hanging high in the air in front of the theater

12:15-1 p.m. & 1:30-2:15 p.m.

Chopteeth

Dance party with 14-piece Afrofunk orchestra

12:45-1:30 p.m. & 3:45-4:30 p.m.

Petit Monsieur in Out of Order

Man fights phone booth

12:30-1:30 p.m.

Positive Vibrations Youth Steel Band

Keeping things tropical while empowering kids through the steel drums

12:45-1:30 p.m., 3:45-4:30 p.m., & 5:15-6 p.m

The Alberti Flea Circus

Old world flea circus with new tricks

Full program here

I'm definitely going to at least some of these shows, if anyone is interested in going with me let me know!

Nick

SO we have some fun news for you guys: Kyle and I went to talk to the Russian Language head guy, Richard (Markovich) Robin, if any of you have heard us talk about him. He did a talk on Russian rock music last year, and he said he's doing another one this year. Last year's was great, and we got to hear a bunch of crazy music and learn the stories behind them. We'll keep you updated when we find out the date of the event. In the meantime, here's one of the videos we saw last year: "Soldat" by the Russian REGGAE band 5'nizza. Check it out. Seriously. Jamaican-sounding Russians.

White House Hockey

Keeping with the theme of the LLC in informing all of us about cool stuff to do around the city, I bring to you White House Hockey. (Photo taken from White House Hockey website, http://whitehousehockey.googlepages.com/)

White House Hockey is an organized pickup hockey game that has been going on every weekend in front of the White House for going on 14 years, since the road was closed to vehicle traffic. They've been covered several times by local and national news agencies, and most recently this past week by ABC. I don't think the Hatchet has done anything on it yet, so it may be a story possibility if anyone is interested. This past weekend was the first time I played with these group of guys and it was a lot of fun.

The group is made up of a very wide variety of people with a very wide skill gap. There were the 40 something year olds who were using this time as an opportunity to get away from their wives and have some "man time" discussing the cool things their kids did and how crappy their jobs are. There were also a younger, barely out of college group of players who were there to have a good time, and stay in shape. There were a few college students, like myself playing as well. I realized that, like GW very few, if any at all were originally from the DC area and I actually met a fellow player who grew up in the same area as me and actually attended a rival high school many years back.

The game was played 4 on 4 with a goalie in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue, using half-sized hockey nets. We actually played directly in front of the treasury building, past the White House. Games lasted 10 minutes and the winning team stayed on for the next game. For a pickup game, things were very organized and everyone seemed to know the rules. While actually playing, it brought a new feeling of the game to me. Absent was the typical cut throat nature of the game of hockey that I am so used to playing in the Northeast. Back home even pickup games at the local hockey rink between the best of friends (we've all been playing together since were 5 years old) is ultra competitive. Here, it didn't really matter who won or lost, it was all about the love of the game and having fun. I hope to continue playing with these guys and become a bigger part of this group in the future.


- Kyle

VENICE, Italy – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez received a movie star welcome Monday at the Venice Film Festival, where he walked the red carpet with director Oliver Stone for the premiere of the documentary "South of the Border."

here's the rest of it

Hey guys, in keeping with our LLC's thirst for knowledge and our commitment to sharing each other's passions, I implore you to check out this website.

http://www.eenews.net/gw/

Greenwire is an environmental policy news source that has daily posts and links to articles that reflect our country's stance on environmental issues. This is an important topic these days, and you can see for yourself how congress is preparing for the Copenhagen Climate Conference that aims to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Keep your fingers crossed! The US might not embarrass itself again.

Bye for now,

Redgie

WELCOME TO PASSPORT!

first post! i'm excited to be back and ready for a great year chock full of great LLC events. we've already begun: bake-offs, picnics, free plays at the kennedy center, etc etc etc..

the week began with our epic bake-off: apple pie from nick and my grandma's guava cake recipe (pictures to follow). the next day was brenna's birthday, which included a cake made of cupcakes (the "cup cake") and ray's hell burgers in rosslyn. yet another reason to love DC. wednesday night we had our first LLC meeting of the year and everyone attended. we heard about upcoming events and recent news about the french pm and this great hip hop group.

what else, what else.. friday night was first friday, which is free art at a gallery in dupont circle. a couple of us made restaurant week reservations at vidalia, a fancy place not too far from campus. that was DELICIOUS. i will never get over the pork cheeks with crawfish etouffee. saturday i went on a picnic with nick and we went to see free previews of plays at the kennedy center (flat stanley and ferdinand the bull). we're excited for "if you give a pig a pancake" at the end of the year and CATE BLANCHETT STARRING IN A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE FOR MY BIRTHDAY IN NOVEMBER.

sunday a bunch of us went to malcolm x park near u street to see the drum circle and eat a delicious picnic which included hummus and sandwiches and chinese candies.

GREAT WEEK TEAM. more to come soon.