Giles and The Negotiator

Further reading on Marc Norton can be found here but essentially he is a bit weird, runs a furniture store and is famous in Cleveland. We had a brief meeting and photo session, he was somewhere between uninterested and compliant.

Pat, Wyatt, Phil and myself continued to the Marina where we spoke mostly about the cost of boats before heading to the ballgame. I was introduced to the mascot which is a big purple monster type thing called Slider.

The Indians won 7-6 but unfortunately we didn't see most of it as we got stuck at the bar. We left for Baltimore with nothing but good memories of Cleveland and it's definitely somewhere I'd recommend a visit.

Our trip to Baltimore was a fleeting one, we drove to the ballpark watched the White Sox comeback from 2-0 down to beat the Orioles and that was pretty much it.

A mere thirty minute drive got us to DC where we managed to stumble upon the presidential motorcade outside the White House, it was about 15 vehicles long. Apparently Barrack Obama was on his way to play basketball with some NBA stars, tough gig.

For those of you that don't know Giles he is our friend from London who happens to be working in Washington whilst we were here. We'd agreed to meet up a few days previously and conveniently we saved a few cents by staying in his hotel room.

We didn't really have any plans so rather than explore the cities museums and art galleries we went up to the hotel pool and relaxed for a little bit. After a few hours we jumped online to see if anything was happening in DC on a quiet Monday.

The Counting Crows were playing in a place called Vienna in Virginia and it seemed a reasonable idea to pay around $50 to go and see them.

"How are we going to get tickets?" said Phil
"We'll just get them from touts outside." I replied.

So with no tickets we took a 20 minute metro ride and then a 15 minute shuttle bus to the venue.

"I'll handle the negotiating" I said

Unfortunately there was nobody to negotiate with, it had completely sold out and all we could find was someone selling a single ticket.

We persisted.

Another single ticket came up and so I decided to purchase in the hope of finding two more.

"How much do you want?" I enquired
"$25"
"Done"

It was at this point that a policewoman came over and told me that what I had just done was illegal and that we needed to enter or leave the grounds.

So we now had one ticket, three people, a criminal act and a few dollars less than we came with. We decided to cut our losses and return to town, fortunately I covertly managed to hunt out a purchaser who asked me how much I wanted for it. It was time to make a tidy profit for my troubles.

"$25" I said (completely bottling it)

The guy bit my hand off but he only had two twenties and I only had enough change to give him $13 which he seemed happy with. I had made myself a tidy two bucks completely by accident!

Having bargained my ticket so successfully I was to be further tested, this time by the taxi driver.

"40 dollars"
"I want you to use the meter"
"I like your style" said the gentleman from Ghana who had previously lived in Croydon of all places.

When the fare came to $43 the driver looked pretty smug about life, Giles and Phil were now cursing my negotiating skills albeit in a good natured fashion.

It didn't take us long to realise he hadn't bothered to take us to the place we asked him to and when we did finally make it to the AdamsMorgan region we found that there was in fact nothing going on whatsoever.

We headed instead to Georgetown where whilst playing Mario Kart in a bar we met some girls who were to invite us to their house for a bit. It wasn't long before Giles offered to give me a much needed haircut and for some reason I agreed to it. He tried but it didn't really suit me and after trying to fix it myself the next morning I resorted to paying $30 in an all black barbers for the best haircut i'd had in the previous 12 hours (just).

The Nationals game will follow shortly...