[SkateDC] West Embassy Loop (7/25/09) Skate Report

[George Marinkovich]

The 12.8 mile long West Embassy Loop Skate held last Saturday passed 55 embassies, starting with Bosnia and Herzegovina and ending with Liechtenstein.  Almost all of the embassies were flying flags with the exception of Libya and Yemen in the Watergate Office complex, and Liechtenstein in a nondescript office building near the White House.  Maybe because they are located in multiple-tenant buildings they are unable to fly their flags.  

The skate took about 2 hours 30 minutes, of which approximately 1 hour and 48 minutes was spent skating; the remainder of the time was spent looking at the embassies,  and most importantly to me, catching my breath.

Thanks to the decision of several Caribbean nations (Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Saint Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines) to locate their embassies on New Mexico Avenue we were obliged to climb nearly the entire hill going to American University.   Then again, thanks to the same countries, we were able to enjoy the nice downhill on New Mexico Ave.

The group consisted of Fabio, Igor, Søren, Céline, and me.  By coincidence we managed to avoid skating past any of our respective embassies of national origin (in some cases ancestral): Columbia, Russia, Denmark, Canada, and Croatia.  Columbia will be taken care of during the Central Embassy Loop this Saturday, and the remainder are covered by the East Embassy Loop the Saturday after next.  

Cheers,
George