Una Americanca si un Roman din Washington DC

January 22, 2009 5:36 AM

Lived in DC for thirteen years, visiting my parents, and my Romanian friend may be visiting me this summer. In any case, what can I do to make sure he has the best time possible in America?

I live in Madison, WI but visit my parents in Washington, DC every summer. My closest friend lives in Bucharest, and he intends to visit America for probably a week or two. He's got a free bunk and a free meal a night, and there are some things I'm planning to show him.

We're both geeky, scientific folks in our twenties (I'm a neurobiology student, as you know. He's a compsci student.) and I'm planning to show him the usual monuments (Capitol, possibly White House, memorials, Archive, museums, Zoo), American cuisine (including fast food and barbecue), an American bookstore (there are untranslated versions of books there that he really wants to see since Romanian translations are poor), and possibly one of the cheaper yet nice clubs.

What can I do to make his stay in the US nice?

posted by kldickson to travel & transportation (7 comments total)

Take him to a major league baseball game.
posted by nitsuj at 5:57 AM on January 22 [1 favorite has favorites]

Eighteenth Street Lounge, which has a great outside deck for summer drinks, had a Romanian bartender, last I checked.
posted by BobbyVan at 6:37 AM on January 22

Don't let him near the Burger King people? I kid, I kid.

My boyfriend was quite fond of the bookstores in Dupont Circle last time he was there -- there's this one, and Politics and Prose if he's also interested in that sort of thing.

Something I like to do when I am not in my normal environment: grocery store trip. Even inside the US it's interesting to see how they differ, let alone coming from another country (I miss the SPAR supermarket I lived near in Austria...sigh). Maybe you could do a grocery store trip / make dinner for the family day?

Cheesy but fun and might appeal to his interest in computers -- the spy museum. Although, and you know him better than we do, he might be ooked out at spy-anything depending on his family's experiences pre-1989.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 9:57 AM on January 22

I don't have much to contribute to the question, except to point out that the grammatically correct phrase is "O americanca si un roman in Washington DC" instead of "Una Americanca si un Roman din Washington DC," just FYI.
posted by agent99 at 10:31 AM on January 22

I am a young 20 something in DC, have had friends visit from all over and totally understand wanting to show your friend a good time.

As far the the usual monuments go, you should go out of your way to go to the Udvar-Hazy Center of the National Air and Space Museum, it's impressive regardless of where you are from.

http://www.nasm.si.edu/UdvarHazy/

Sporting events are fun, The Capitals will probably have already won the Stanley Cup before he gets into town, so maybe a DC United game, I go all the time and get hammered with La Barra Brava.

If your friend likes to drink take him down to the waterfront in Georgetown for some drinks, if it's a nice night he will be impressed by all the talented young women walking around : )

What area of DC do you live in? Depending on what suburbs or neighborhood you might live in there are lots of different options!
posted by OuttaHere at 11:22 AM on January 22

I think you should probably focus more on the kinds of things your friend specifically enjoys, rather than what "Romanians" enjoy. Don't get me wrong, it's admirable that you want to find something culturally relevant for your friend to do or see in the states, but most Romanians I know are like most other people I know, at least in the sense that they've all got different interests. From my own perspective as an American living in Romania, I might suggest giving him the opportunity to try different types of ethnic food (because that's what I miss most, living here), but Buc's probably got the most variety of any Romanian city--a few Indian places, a Thai restaurant, you can find sushi, etc. Maybe a real Middle-Eastern restaurant? Everyone should know the goodness of true shawarma, along with learning that cabbage and french fries don't belong in it.

And this may be a bigger cultural issue because I live in Transylvania, but a few Romanians I've met here would take issue with Udvar-Hazy, due to the ethnic détente between Romanians and Székely. But I live in the region with the highest concentration of ethnic Hungarians (around Mureş and Harghita counties, where in several areas Romanians are in the minority) and encounter more of this. Since your friend is from the south, this may not be on his radar.
posted by the luke parker fiasco at 2:05 PM on January 22

Take them out for some real, Southern-fried soul food.

Also, how about an Imax screening in 3-D?
posted by cinemafiend at 11:23 AM on January 25