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insomnia strikes a second night, didn't fall asleep until 5am. i went down to the post office to mail my state taxes, then biked to rite aid to get some breathing strips (to prevent possible snoring, $6.49 box of 10) and see what they had in travel-sized toiletries.

i found out wangyang left philadelphia early: yesterday she said she was leaving for washington around 4pm, but decided to leave by 1pm. i didn't ask her why, but i figured just as i suspected that there wasn't much left to do in philly. due to arrive by 4:30pm, that still gave her a few hours to sightsee in dc. however, when she arrived, she said it was really cold an decided to just stay in the hotel.

karen came home around 6:30pm. i knew she was moving to her friend paula's house near alewife tonight because she had to walk her friend's dog by around 7pm. but what i wasn't expecting was for her to do not one load of laundry but two. didn't she have to go? later i learned that she was already at her friend's house earlier walking the dog, and had come back. she finally left sometime after 8pm. i had some trader joe's mushroom al fredo pasta for dinner.

wangyang sent me a washington dc map marked with places she wanted to visit. she also told me that she was thinking about going to new york early, by sunday night, which would give her less than a day and a half of washington dc exploration, about the same amount of time she spent in philadelphia. her reason was this: she looked on booking.com and found a bunch of very cheap manhattan hotels. she sent me links and i couldn't believe the prices, rooms for $90 around time square. i did some investigating and discovered that the serious price reduction was only for sunday nights; all other days the prices skyrocketed to hundreds of dollars per night. it's a good bargain, but i told her to consider. for one thing, a day and a half is not enough time to really take in dc. also, for a purely selfish reason, i told her i wanted to be there in new york city when she sees it for the first time; if she arrives on sunday, she will already have seen parts of the city, and i won't be able to surprise her anymore. i think that was the argument that won her over, and she decided to stay in dc for 2 full days, leaving for nyc monday morning, the same time i'd be leaving boston.