There is no good time to vomit at a wedding

The White House from the rooftop of the Hay-Adams 

There was a problem blogging in Washington because the advertised WiFi connection in the Lombardy Hotel did not exist and my MacBook Air does not even fart in the general direction of hard wire connections – I mean they are just so 20th century.

But the hotel was notable for providing us with the most expensive American breakfast we have ever had – at $98 – and I only thought about this later and wondered about what we had had that had cost so much. Well sure the fresh OJ was probably $12 and my honey dipped nut-encrusted French toast was $14 and the Espresso coffee was $8 but even so it is very expensive by American standards when  you can get a Bagel and a coffee at Starbucks for $6.

But we had to stay there for the first two nights because that was where everyone else was staying because the room rate was cheaper – well I guess at breakfast rates like that they could probably throw the rooms in for free.

For the wedding we moved to the Hay-Adams which should have been a wonderful experience but unfortunately I got a very bad cold which meant that I had a sore throat and a migraine which I could not shake and a fever and the sweats and just felt really bad during the entire wedding thing. Which was not just a wedding but a pre-wedding family dinner and a post-wedding family brunch.

There is no good time to either faint or vomit at a wedding – especially if it is not your own. For a man my age both of these will be attributed to alcohol and it will forever after be know as the ‘drunken uncle Phillip incident’.

Wishing to avoid this I stood pale and sweating and clutching a table at the rear of the room – with trembling knees – but determined to maintain my equilibrium.

I got through the important parts of the evening and improved enough to start drinking wine - after which things got markedly better.

The reception was held on the rooftop of the Hay-Adams hotel which overlooks the White House. It is an astonishing venue at any time and especially when you have had a couple of handfuls of Ibuprofen – some Migraine tablets – and about 8 glasses of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.

We are only back in Vienna for a day and tomorrow we fly to Ireland for five days. I hope to blog.