things aren't what they seem

This place I'm staying at is eclectic and interesting.  The neighborhood is made up mostly of older brick row houses, all attached, but each one a different color or type of brick, all 3 stories high.  On the corner just a few doors down is a bar and dance club with a lot of tables outside.  The weather is in the 80's here, so everyone is out of doors, either sitting on the stoop, playing soccer across the street or sitting down on 14th St making drug deals and waiting for the bus home.

When I got here, I had to open a lock box for my keys, and then wrestle my way through the locked gate and the deadbolted front door.  Makes going and coming a truly intended act-too much work otherwise!

My room is tiny but full of character, and it has a small balcony on which I am sitting right now.  A gentleman that I took to be a handy man said something about running late and he was working on putting in a window air conditioner.  He was in old jeans and an old stained t-shirt, funny the assumptions we make.  So I told him I'd be going out for a while, and he could finish it, and then as I was leaving, he asked me where I was from.  The 'handyman' turns out to be a surgeon turned general clinic doctor, from LA, medical school in Michigan, and then he did a postdoctorate fellowship in South Africa that changed his life.  And here he is, owning and working on this little place.  I don't know if anyone else is staying here right now, I have seen no one else.

I bought a little pocket camera and will post some photos of this neighborhood.  It's intriguing, colorful and just a bit daunting.  Somehow it's easier to walk about in a foreign country where I have no idea what people are saying.  People are friendly, I got help from a couple of different people to find my way here.

Tomorrow morning early I will find breakfast and then go to stand in line at the Supreme Court, in the hopes of getting in to watch a session.  Arguments are being heard tomorrow in Sorrell v IMS Health, a medical privacy case.  These links will give you information about the case.  Since tomorrow is the only day of the ones that I am here that the court is sitting for oral argument, I am going early, I really do not want to miss this.

http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/sorrell-v-ims-health-inc/

http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealthPolicy/GeneralProfessionalIssues/26105

Off to explore some more...