Week 2: Virginia

Week 2

I am writing this while sitting at the Samuel Adams bar/restaurant in the Richmond International Airport, finishing off a draft Sam Adams Summer Ale (which was exceptional, BTW) pondering over the burger I just finished off, listening to miscellaneous Russian pop and euro music in my headphones. After having gone through this pretty wild week, I must say life is good… for the most part. Eventful, if anything.

I flew out on Sunday, barely made my flight from DFW (Dallas Fort-Worth) to RIC (Richmond, Virginia.) The accommodations were Hotel Sierra in Short Pump mall – one of the biggest outside malls in the country. Snazzy contemporary-looking setup, with basically all the furniture I want for my apartment. I actually decided since I had all of this time on my hands (I arrived at 7pm), it would be cool to just explore. Most places were closed by then, with the exception of a few restaurants. Having grabbed a steak sandwich from Firebird’s and ate at the hotel. Further I decided that a work out is in order – first one in a month or two. Eating and drinking without much physical activity is not a good layout.

Virginia. On Monday we were expected to meet in the lobby after a pretty nice breakfast bar to get on a shuttle to Capital One headquarters. The lounge area was full of ADP kids, some familiar, some not. There was a group from McLean, VA staying there as well. The day was basically focused on HR, culture, history, etc… Good overview, but a bit overkill. Afterwards came the cocktails. Funny part – they gave out 2 drink tickets per person, since apparently the class before us was a little rowdy. There we got to hang with a bunch of McLean & Richmond, as well as some associates and managers. I hovered all around with my classy glass of chardonnay. Later was the dinner. In a mildly forced fashion, I sat with one of the senior guys at a table, surrounded by several Virginia ADPs. The evening closed with a miserable experience at a nearby bar. The ADP crowd headed out to Bar Louie’s, just outside the hotel. Apparently in VA, a temporary driver’s license is considered a “fake”. So is a Green Card. My attempt at getting a beer was an utter fail. Throughout the course of the night, I sipped water and spewed out nasty comments about the bartender and the bar in general. In the process, I ran into Nataliya, the only other Eastern European in the bunch. We chatted for a while, and then I headed out. The night closed out with me going to a gym with my buddy Ryan and pumping iron. I felt very accomplished.

Tuesday. More speakers, divisional overview, etc… Only thing I recall was that our crowd ended up at Applebees of all places. Fail. This time I had my passport, so I succeeded in getting a beer. There were some talks of going out downtown, but that never worked out. I actually knocked out way early, at about 10pm.

Wednesday. Capital One Economics – effectively, now I can explain exactly how a credit card company makes money. It wasn’t too bad, but the overlap was starting to get annoying. Lots of similar information all over. After work me and Ryan ended up going shopping with a couple of cute McLean girls… and man it’s been a while since I’ve acted so ridiculous at the mall. The night took us to the Fan district of Richmond. That is effectively where the college kids hang. We hung out at this absurdly crowded but interesting college/yuppie bar called 3 Monkeys Bar, which was pretty good for what it was. There were the usual suspects, mixed with a variety of Richmond and McLean based ADPs. Afterwards, I ended up driving the car, since Jacob and was already done by that point, and after getting lost 5 times in a 10 block square, we made it to the next venue – Banditos Burrito Lounge. Wow, Virginia, really? It was basically a college dump where they hosted karaoke. Hardly a pleasant venue, but a bunch of our peers seemed to be thrilled. We promptly departed, with me driving back to the hotel.

Competition. Thursday was the day of the case competition. Recalling the interview, I was expecting something similar to that. Actually it turned out to be a paper/computer based version of Markstrat (a marketing simulation game). While it felt a bit flawed, it was still a good experience. My team placed last, but I was more than happy with our strategy and results. I think we got a star for effort. The night was a spontaneous decision, based on a recommendation of a fellow ADP from McLean on Tobacco Company. It was a particularly fancy restaurant with a beautiful lounge on the first floor, and two levels of dining rooms above. Instrumental guitar jazz was in the air.

The décor was something of an early 20^th century feel, showcasing a massive “Adams Family” elevator in the middle of the restaurant. After enjoying a gorgeous New York Strip with a cherry reduction and a Red Diamond cabernet sauvignon, we decided to go to the rumored “club”, which was supposedly located in the SAME building. The hostess directed us outside and down into the basement. And to my amazement, there was an actual top-40 night club with lasers and everything right there! Moreover, there was a blackjack table (seemed unusual), but what made it particularly incredible was the fact that it was for CHARITY! They even issued a receipt for the $5 buy-in. The crowd was a mix-bag of college kids, yuppies, and a healthy amount of a well-dressed older crowd, spread across the whole cultural spectrum. Cupid Shuffle was a pure win. Later me and JoAnna decided to pull a little random Top-40 salsa to Modjo, of all things. The night closed with a miserable attempt to get into a couple of other bars with our Plano crowd. A couple other ADPs had some ID issues and were denied.

Ropes! Friday was the Challenge Discovery (CD) team building day. CD was an outdoor sport activity type of place with a variety of climbing locales, tight rope setups, etc… My team, unsurprisingly a mix of Plano, Richmond and McLean, was pretty heavily weighted on girls – we had maybe 5 or so out of 14 people. Some groups had none… In either case, we started with a criss-cross tight rope where 4 people had to get to the opposite side at the same time. I loved it. A couple of our team mates didn’t do very well though. Then was the incredible 15FT wall, over which we all had to get across. It was concluded that I was the best fit to go last (since the person on top would have to pull me up). In the process I got to throw at least 10 people up. The end was spectacular, however. I got my running start, and very much in a Spiderman fashion, nearly ran up the wall, latched onto John’s wrists and got up. Massive win for the team. Nobody fell or got hurt. Then was a pretty mild activity where we had to lower a tent pole with nothing but 14 index fingers, without anyone losing contact with the pole. Pure precision. We finally got it after a dozen attempts. Last was the best part. A 50ft tower, built of 3 pillars in a pyramid fashion, with rock-climbing attachments all over, and a platform up top. Our goal was to climb up 4 people at once, with the aid of another team, and push 2 humongous exercise balls up to the top. That was an incredibly difficult task, but we succeeded a couple of times, even though we never quite got them on top of the actual platform. Wow that was plenty of adrenaline. CD experience closed with a 4-way tug of war. We were directly opposite a team with nothing but guys, several of which looked to be of the football/baseball player variety. And I am proud to say that we held up incredibly well, all thanks to a strategy of synchronizing our pull attempts, rather than applying static pressure on the rope.

The Drive. Thanks to Dhruv, a McLean based ADP, I got a ride to DC. Despite the ridiculously cramped headroom of the Scion TC back seat, we had a pretty good road trip. With us was Justin from Plano and Dave who was also in McLean. Oddly enough, both Dhruv and Dave happened to be dating Russian girls. I found that particularly amusing.

DC. Once I got in, I quickly hopped on the rail and headed towards Stephanie, my good friend from RPI. In Wheaton we linked up with several of her friends for dinner and hit the club later. We got on the list at Tuscany West – an upscale Latin club downtown DC. It felt pretty awesome to be able to do salsa again.

Russian Saturday. The next day I met up with my dear NYC friends, Elina, Alla and Gosha. We went to eat lunch at a marvelous Uzbek restaurant, Café Assorti. I had okroshka, a unique Russian cold soup, pirojki, and manti, Uzbek dumplings, following with kompot, a classic fruit drink. We were later joined by the one and only Alexander Zolotov.

Heat. Despite the absurd triple digit temperature, we still ended up going on a tour of DC hosted by Alex. The tour effectively ended with the National Harbor. Here is a picture of me standing on top of a huge silver man stuck in sand... he is biting my leg off?

A spectacular development just outside of DC, with a massive resort hotel and plenty of mixed-use buildings.

Clubbing, part 2. Saturday night took us to Slaviya, on thanks to the suggestion of Alex. It was a Serbian/Bulgarian restaurant, with a very modern, club-like décor. Soft lounge beats filled the atmosphere. The heart of the meal was a Wine Kebap – closest thing I can think of is like a crawfish etouffee, but with beef and more of a red bell pepper type feel rather than tomato base. I was impressed. Towards 11pm, our area started getting roped off, and tables nearby were carried to the back. Soon, powerful house beats started kickin. And the club was on. I was thrilled with the transformation. Alex knew the owner, the DJ, his wife… and at least a dozen more people in the place. It was kind of nice to get grandfathered into VIP. The party was organized by a certain Troika Party, a DC based entertainment group. Alla kept trying to get me on the dance floor, since they were departing soon, but I was locked up a bit on the fact that it was still pretty early, and the club was a bit bright and hardly full. After a little while I worked up the courage, and we turned out to be the only people on the dance floor. However, in a little while, girls started edging closer to the dance floor, and before we knew it, the crowd was bouncing. Win.

Lumbar. So sitting in this airplane seat, finishing up this post, I am coming to a conclusion that airplanes really should at least try to add some comfort to these seats. There is absolutely 0 lumbar support. But that’s beside the point.

Return. Sunday morning, I woke up at a pretty early hour of 8am. Stephanie’s family was going to church, and out of respect mixed with curiosity, I decided to join them, despite it being a Catholic service. After the service, we headed out to Richmond. I am particularly grateful to her, since driving me to an airport 150 miles away is not exactly fun. The reason for the inconvenience is my obnoxious tendency to try to “wing it”. When I booked my flight, I was under the impression that Richmond and DC are right next to each other. Fail. Before I flew out, I assumed I can get a $50/day rental and just go to DC and back. Well little did I know that a one way rental would cost close to $200! Fail 2. So I tried to change my flight on Saturday, and was pretty unsuccessful, since a flight out of DC would be close to $400. Well to be precise, I ended up dropping my reservation by accident, panicking, but still reinstating it. After 2 hours of stress, I was back where I started. Fail 3. Boy, is it good to have friends that are willing to help out when you just fail all over.

So in the end, I concluded that in the future, it would probably help to plan a bit more in advance. Tomorrow is going to be crazy – my first day without much of a program. I have to learn new software and start completing projects soon. My first deadline – July 30! Despite it all, thanks to Vladimir Z., a Dallas veteran, I got connected to a certain international loop here in Dallas, and will be going to an indie movie opening event on July 29. Quite excited.