Tag Archives: National Conference Center

On the way home | Travelling continued

The other night on twitter I came across this link. I thought it was hilarious. Given I’m “guilty” of many of the examples used in the parody I could see a lot of myself in it, especially the food images. I expect if I owned a cat or a dog I’d post a picture of them every day too.

Click here for the Instagram parody

On Wednesday I went to dinner with my colleagues to the Lightfoot Restaurant in Leesburg. It is a renovated bank and the men’s room has the vault door as a feature wall opposite the urinals and stalls.

Google map http://goo.gl/maps/Dymtk

View Larger Map

Lightfoot Dinner menu | Lightfoot Dessert menu
The restaurant has won awards and is regarded by locals as a pretty fancy place to eat.

For an entrée (or starter for my American friends) I asked for “The Plank”. This is a dish served on a plank of wood. It contains a small cube of salmon, a seared scallop and a couple of pieces of chorizo on a skewer. These lovely meats are served alongside a plentiful amount of bacon. As far as entrées goes, it was good but too much.

Sorry it was a room with very poor lighting. My iPhone 4 doesn’t capture images well in low light.

For my main dish I was excited that gumbo was a special. I’ve never had gumbo and I’ve always wanted to try it. This one was extra special because it contained hush puppies, fried oysters, prawns and a fillet of catfish. A few months ago I watched a video from Hilah about hush puppies and I thought then I’d like to try it. I’m also sure I’ve seen Hilah cook catfish too. The gumbo was good. It was heavier than I thought it would be but then I did eat a very large entrée.

Remarkably I did not ask for a dessert. I’ve been eating enough dessert on aeroplanes and at the National Conference Center.

The bank vault as seen in the men’s rest room.

———-

The meeting I have been participating in has gone well and on Thursday afternoon as soon as we broke up I began the journey home.

To recap though, on Wednesday for breakfast I asked the egg cooking lady for a cheese and mushroom omelet. I also asked for some bacon pieces but she didn’t understand what I was saying. I said bacon three times but to no avail. I then put on what I thought was an American accent and she understood me. This is not the first time, quite often flight attendants don’t have a clue what I’m saying.

———-

I discovered on Wednesday that the NCC also does hamburgers for lunch. I found some beetroot from the salad bar and shared with my colleagues from the US, Canada and the UK that a hamburger should have beetroot. It would have been improved with a pineapple ring and a fried egg but they weren’t available.

The NCC also has soft serve ice cream with various flavoured sauces and cherries and nuts.

———-

For Thursday morning, I seriously contemplated an egg white omelet however, I discovered the waffle maker How could I pass up a waffle with some bacon and sausage plus some sugared strawberries, cream and this thing called breakfast syrup.

———

Thursday lunch had to be another hamburger plus some flank steak and scallops.

———-

When the meeting finished on Thursday afternoon I caught the shuttle to Dulles (IAD) as soon as I could. I didn’t want to miss my flight UA647 to San Francisco (SFO).

———-

The dinner on UA647 was a choice between chicken and pasta. Given my experience on flight UA525 from SFO to IAD I chose pasta. It was okay. I wouldn’t want it again. The passenger next to me had the chicken. It was a plain looking piece of breast. It looked dry. My neighbour didn’t finish it. Enough said.

The flight from IAD to SFO took six hours. When we landed in SFO I had enough time to access wifi in the United Club to send through the meeting report I wrote on the flight UA647. I also had a biscuit.

———-

I boarded UA863 and soon after takeoff we had dinner.

———-

I was again facing backwards.

This is the menu choice. I asked for the short rib of beef and if that wasn’t available the salmon and crab.

Fortunately the short rib of beef was available and it was one of the nicest airline meals I’ve enjoyed. Almost on a par with the Red wine braised beef with soft polenta roasted shallots and salsa verde I enjoyed when I travelled on Virgin Australia to Mexico in 2011. http://garydavidlum.com/2011/11/20/lax-to-syd-dinner-on-vaustralia/

For en entrée we were served a salad and a salmon wrapped prawn.

The main had the short rib of beef with mash, beans and baby carrots.

This was followed with the ubiquitous ice cream sundae with walnuts, caramel sauce, cream and cherries.

———-

While asleep I had this nightmare that the aeroplane lost power and we plummeted to our deaths. I woke up with a start as well as a sore throat. I think I’m developing a head cold.

Breakfast was an omelet

———-

It was a relief to get into Sydney and prepare for the last flight of the day.

On the flight between Sydney and Canberra, Qantas mishandled my bag so it didn’t arrive with me. The good thing was I ended up sitting next to a friend who used to work in the department. She’s just returned from a work trip to Samoa.

My bag arrived in the afternoon. It gave me enough time to buy some groceries.

———-

I’ve been watching series 2 of The Walking Dead this afternoon.

For dinner I made a salad from leaves, red onion, celery and some Australian feta along with a little balsamic vinegar and olive oil. I also cooked a piece of salmon and a piece of bread.

Dulles Airport IAD

Google map http://goo.gl/maps/rAKYp

View Larger Map

San Francisco International Airport SFO
Google map http://goo.gl/maps/GzJKY

View Larger Map

It’s Summer time and the season for tropical fruit. Here’s a YouTube video from Hilah giving advice on how to cut a pineapple.

Hilah cutting a pineapple
It’s Summer so what better time to experience some tropical fruit.

Hilah making hush puppies

Hilah making fried catfish

A week of travelling (garydavidlum.com)
Another week in Instagram and schoolies week (garydavidlum.com)
This Nickelback Parody Video Destroys Instagram With Absolute Perfection [Video] (cultofmac.com)
Look at This Instagram, A Parody of Photograph by Nickelback (laughingsquid.com)

A week of travelling

7 Replies

This week I’m attending a meeting in Leesburg, VA. I’m writing this post as I go, if I was in the mood I’d add a timestamp with each entry but given the different time zones I’m going to be in that is a little too anal retentive even for me and my obsessive compulsive personality.

Since my last post I’ve been spending time going over my meeting briefing notes and watching DVDs. I picked up the first series of The Walking Dead and I’m hooked.

—–

A local Gourmet Deli Belconnen does good coffee

This deli is full of good stuff from an amazing range of chocolate to other sweets to large containers of beans and cheeses and cold meats. There are all sorts of oils and spreads and spices to choose from. The staff are pretty friendly and always happy to assist.

The shop is opposite Coles so if your heading to Westfield Shoppingtown in Belconnen for your grocery shopping, the Gourmet Deli Belconnen is a good place to relax and have a coffee.

—–

After some early morning shopping I made myself some scrambled eggs for breakfast. I like to make thick and rich scrambled eggs. I usually use a couple of free range eggs that I’ve warmed up to room temperature plus an almost equal volume of pouring cream. I whisk vigorously (now using my Magic Bullet®) along with a pinch of sugar, salt and pepper. I melt real butter in a small heavy fry pan until the butter foams and starts to brown, then I add the egg and cream mixture. I wait a minute before touching the mixture. I slowly pull away from one side the mixture and watch the liquid replace the solid fluffy curds. I repeat this slowly until most of the mixture has has formed soft shiny curds. I removed the pan from the heat and scoop the scrambled eggs onto freshly toasted bread. If you like you can garnish with parsley and if it feels right a little freshly grated cheese (Mersey Valley or Coon) can be added.

—–

Avocado and tomato on toasted light rye sourdough bread

Avocados have been expensive lately. It’s been a while but I wanted some so I bought a Hass avocado for $2. This makes a great lunch.

—–

Fruit and the Magic Bullet®

I have been enjoying the warm days and there’s nothing more refreshing than crushing some ice with mint, adding a little fruit and some cordial. These are the fruits I used today.

—–

Mango coleslaw with a little salmon and a crushed ice minted lemon lime and bitters

This is the last coleslaw I make for a week. I think all my Instagram followers are happy not to see any more red cabbage spam

—–

The start of my journey in the Qantas Business Lounge at CBR

Even though I made myself a caramel coffee banana smoothie for breakfast, it’s hard to pass up some yoghurt while in the lounge along with a nicely made flat white.

—–

The snack served on QF704

This biscuit was a little too sweet. I should have chosen water instead of juice. Too much sugar at the start of a long day.

—–

An awful cup of coffee at The Terrace near the check-in aisles at SYD (T1)

This was disgusting. Too milky and the coffee wasn’t strong enough. It was also tepid rather than the right temperature for frothing milk.

—–

After checking in I made it to the code share lounge for United Airlines, viz., the Koruclub which belongs to Air New Zealand

The Koruclub is well appointed and always has fresh supplies. It’s not in the same class as the Qantas lounges, but with the best fare of the day policy, I cannot complain. I am grateful that I get to travel for work and work with international colleagues.

They also have a hot dog stand.

This is a chilli dog with onions and cheese. I really should stop this senseless eating.

—–

So the flight to San Francisco was delayed by about an hour which in my mind at the time made my connection with Dulles just that little more tight than what it already was.

This is the view from my seat. I was facing backwards.

It’s nice to see the engines intact

—–

This is the menu for the main meal. The question was steak or salmon. Given the amount of salmon I’ve eaten lately I chose steak.

—–

To start we always get some nuts, usually almonds and peanuts that have been warmed up. That’s always a nice touch. The entrée was a nice salad plus some smoked salmon so I wasn’t missing out on salmon altogether.

—–

The fillet mignon was okay. The flavour was pleasant but the meat had been cooked too long for my liking and it was a little dry. The mashed potato was okay with it plus the little fried onions as part of the gravy.

—–

What I like about United Airlines is the dessert is always a sundae of some sort. For some reason the flight from Sydney didn’t have much choice. There was either strawberry or chocolate sauce. I chose strawberry.

—–

I spent most of the flight reading for this meeting but I did watch one movie, viz., The Expendables 2. A great action flick with the classic modern day action actors.

—–

For breakfast rather than the poached eggs I went for the deli plate. The plate consisted of ham, cheese and some smoked salmon. The passenger next to me chose the eggs and the yolks looked like yellow squash balls. I’ve had poached eggs on many airlines and it’s uncommon for them to serve the yolk soft let alone runny.

—–

Scenes coming into San Francisco.

—–

On getting into San Francisco International Airport (SFO), I had a mad dash to get my connection, UA525 to Washington DC Dulles (IAD). The lines at Customs and Border Protection were really long, fortunately as a government employee I carry an Official Passport and along with a Visa and the correct forms I don’t need to spend time with finger prints and photographs. The usual questions are usually asking about the meeting I’m attending and that’s it. I picked up my checked-in bag and moved quickly to the domestic terminal area to drop off my bag and dash to the departure gates. About half the time I travel to North America the airline or connecting airport (usually LAX) doesn’t get my bag on my flight so I have to wait another day for it. That means I attend a meeting in crushed clothes I’ve carried as carry-on luggage.

—–

On UA525 to Dulles we had a choice of cannelloni or chicken caciatori. I chose the chicken because I didn’t want the pasta and the cheese. I should have had the pasta and cheese. It looked very appetising while the chicken didn’t and it tasted blergh. It was a breast and it was dry.

—–

That said United Airlines made up for the main course failure with a nice ice cream sundae. I had vanilla bean ice cream with caramel sauce, nuts, glacé cherries and whipped cream.

—–

I got to Dulles at about 2200 and waited for the shuttle to the National Conference Center in Leesburg. The bus arrived and started to back up and despite the bus behind it honking its horn and flashing its headlights the bus driver didn’t stop and connected with the bus behind causing some minor damage. This little bingle caused a 45 minute delay so I didn’t check into the National Conference Center until after 2300.

It didn’t take long to get to sleep. I ended up sleeping 5 hours without my CPAP machine which is pretty good. I still felt a little tired.

—–

The Center has a good dining room. I had eggs prepared by an egg chef. I like fried eggs sunny side up.

The Center is pretty cool. The closest thing we have in Australia is the Australian Emergency Management Institute (AEMI). The NCC used to be owned by Xerox. It has accommodation for nearly 1000 guests and 250 meeting rooms. The better thing about the rooms compared to AEMI is that the en suite is private and not shared. The rooms are very small but there is enough room for a double bed and television. There is no refrigerator in the room but there is a drip filter coffee maker. The best thing is free high speed broadband in each room and free high speed wifi across the entire site.

—–

The same dining room is used for lunch. I had snapper, beef and pumpkin.

—–

The snack machine options were mostly these very sweet granola bars.

—–

For dinner we went to the Black Olive Sports Bar. We ordered a few pizzas. I tried pepperoni and a super deeper deluxe.

—–

Okay that’s enough for this post. I’ll continue blogging about my travels in another post when I get back to Australia. Catch you later.
Gaz

Websites of things mentioned in this post.

The Walking Dead
http://www.amctv.com/shows/the-walking-dead
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Walking_Dead_%28TV_series%29
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1520211/

Air New Zealand
http://www.airnewzealand.com.au/
Koru
http://www.airnewzealand.com.au/koru
United Airlines
https://www.united.com (USA)
https://www.united.com/web/en-US/default.aspx?root=1&SID=2BB5002C1C4E4FD4B38535B0CDDFBB85 (AUS)
Qantas
www.qantas.com.au

Mersey Valley cheese
http://www.merseyvalley.com.au/home/
Mersey Valley Classic is a cheese with great character and complexity. Rich, full and flavoursome, it is a truly classy addition to a cheese platter for lovers of that great Vintage taste.
http://www.merseyvalley.com.au/Assets/Images/57640eb1-ce87-41f6-b608-cb3260cd8003.jpg

Coon cheese
http://www.coon.com.au/
http://www.coon.com.au/products.html

How to make a coon toastie
http://www.coon.com.au/toastie/toastabag.html

Toast bags
http://www.toastabagsaustralia.com/

The Expendables 2
http://www.theexpendables2film.com/index.html
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1764651/

The National Conference Center
http://www.conferencecenter.com/