Sunday 2^nd December

A very long sleep in this morning and I think it is the result of some early mornings and late nights recently.  Seems like the body rebels against sleep deprivation and compensates this way. The day was very sunny so we took a long walk exploring our new neighbourhood and set out to find the closest shopping centre. I managed to buy 2 lobster tails for dinner at a price of ….drum roll….$10.00

There were still many autumn leaves around – enough for me to kick into  - and people had many bags full waiting for either collection or storage I’m not sure which.  There were many other folks outdoors dressing their homes and trees too so the suburb seems to have a hum about it. Bob then had a practice run with the car, necessary because starting it is completely different to using a key in the ignition, and he needed to feel comfortable before we ventured too far.

We found the nearest Metro station which we will use regularly to go to Washington DC.  There is no way we would drive there as parking is both limited and very expensive and parking inspectors abound.

On the way back home we noticed a few police cars with lights flashing and a road sign indicating some roads were closed to accommodate a parade.  It turned out to be very close to home, so we walked and watched the McLean Holiday parade.  

There were quite a number of floats and the grand finale was Santa on a fire engine.  Some things never change between countries as we have seen this quite often in Australia.