D To The C, Washington That Is

You know how it is... you miss one week, you miss another... then another... and then you're in the first week of April and your loyal readership has all but disappeared and you decide to take anther stab at this whole "blogging consistently" thing that works really well in theory but not so well in practice when the practitioner is as lazy as yours truly is.

I've been telling myself for two weeks now that I need to blog about my DC experience... well, really Christophe’s and my DC experience... it would have been very different without Christophe; less tiring, more relaxing, less car-renting... but that’s another story.

We arrived in Washington DC on the evening of Saturday, March 17th, having made the drive from Columbus, Ohio in a little over 8 hours including a 90 minute stop in Washington, Pennsylvania to have lunch ("Ze food was' orrible. Vee vill never go back zere!") and look for a gas station (my bad; I was driving and I detoured us all the way back to the street we had passed 20 minutes ago). It was bordering on twilight as we arrived and we took a quick tour of the National Mall area (White House, Capitol, museums etc.) before heading to my aunt's. Apparently the light was perfect and the buildings were beautiful so Christophe hung out of his window, camera in hand, starting to take pictures like a crazed Japanese tourist. I offered to drive so he could concentrate on tourism but he didn't want to be the map reader...

Anyway, we got to my aunt's and met the aunt. And the uncle (who kept trying to make fun of Pakistanis but naturally failed miserably... typical Indian). And the two-year-old niece, who couldn't decide whether she loved me or hated me. But this is beside the point. The next 3 days in Washington DC consisted of all (but were not limited to) the following:

National Museums
National Air and Space Museum
Grade: Meh.
It was alright… it was at the fag end of our whirlwind three day tour and we didn’t really feel like reading, walking or learning. But we were there. And we got to see a couple of INCREDIBLY overpriced McDonalds’ restaurants.

National Museum of Natural History
Grade: Blah.
Alright, so this was NOTHING like “Night at the Museum.” Nothing came alive. No one tried to kill us. And Owen Wilson most definitely did not go whizzing around our shoes in a miniature Jeep. Everything was still and dead. The only really neat display was one of a couple of original quadrillion year old dinosaur skulls… but even they were dead.

No other National Museums were visited. Although we parked right by the Daughters of the American Revolution Museum a couple of times. Their flag looks exactly like the flag of Argentina. I was fooled. Of course there was no smiling Sun in the middle... instead some sort of ship's wheel. That should have been a clue.

Also, I had no idea the "Smithsonian" was a network of museums and societies, 23 or something of them. I thought it was one big building... the things you learn.

The Supreme Court
Grade: Moo.
It was alright. You know, big pillars, justice, impressive, laws and rights, blah blah. We saw the courtroom. And there was a bunch of stuff on the walls and historical blah blahs and an imposing statue of some fellow whose name I forget right in the middle of the lower level.

Library of Congress
Grade: Ah.
The architecture was stunning but, believe it or not, we saw no books other than from behind a Plexiglas screen several stories above the main reading room. Go figure. Apparently you need a special ID to get anywhere near the books. Not hard to get, but still, more work than we were willing to put in.

The White House
Grade: Boo.
Because of who lives there right now, not because it was bad. We didn’t go inside, obviously, especially since we’d been told that the official tour was a waste of time (you didn’t even get to sit in the Presidential chair in the Oval Office and go through the Presidential desk drawers… I dare say the contents of the drawers would have been more entertaining during the Clinton years anyway). But we saw it from the front and the back… through the iron fence. It was actually an enjoyable experience.

Christophe (saying): “Aaah, we are so close to Boooosh.”
Me (thinking): “I wonder how many snipers have their gun sights trained on me right now.”

The United States Capitol
Grade: Coo.
This was somewhat nice, although we didn’t get to see the House or the Senate (you needed special passes for that). We stood in the big old rotunda and learned about all the statues and the artwork and the history etc etc. On our way out we walked past the door to the Office of the House Majority Leader, which was sadly the only real highlight. The real thrill was being inside the building you see on the news every day, I suppose.

The International Spy Museum
Grade: Yay.
Probably DC’s best kept secret. Well, from me anyway. We had to pay $16 to enter but it was well worth it. It was a very interactive museum; all sorts of games, activities and movies. We ended up spending close to four hours there. I decided then and there that I will be a secret agent at some point in my life. Maybe I already am. Or maybe not. Or maybe…

The Ford's Theater
Grade: Supercool.
The theater where Lincoln was shot. Our seats happened to be directly across from the booth where John Wilkes Booth did the deed. Shot by a Booth in a booth, how about that? The booth (theater, not John Wilkes) was decked out with flags and a portrait of Mr. Lincoln… all of which looked like they had been there since 1865. I don’t know if that was intentional. I wish I had known how far into the play it happened. I would have stood up and yelled “Bang bang!!” I’m sure the rest of the audience would have appreciated my enhancement of their theater experience.

Add to that, the musical itself (yes, we actually went there to see a show as well) was fantastic. Meet John Doe, a Frank Capra musical. I have no idea who Frank Capra is/was.

Other sights:
The Washington Monument:
Big tall thing rising up into the sky.

The Lincoln Monument:
HUGE statue of a seated Lincoln behind some awfully large columns. He certainly looks a lot smaller in the pictures.

The Pentagon:
The subway drops you off right by the wall. And by right by the wall, I mean you are literally 10 feel from the wall of the Pentagon. But from there you can’t go anywhere but in. And we couldn’t. So we left.

The Dupont Circle Area:
Food, shops, embassies. Rather a nice place actually. Culture, sustenance, international affairs. Filled to the brim with gay people too, if that's your thing. Here is also where we met Shannon and Isaac (her fiance, not her brother) and Shelly (sister) for dinner in a French bistro. Christophe was in Heaven.

The French Embassy:
Lots of French speaking people. It was important for Christophe to go here for some reason. Everyone was under the impression that I was French too. I maintained this façade by not opening my mouth even once while we were there.

The National Cathedral:
Big building, very bare and boring but with three redeeming qualities:
1. Friendly nuns. If they hadn’t been nuns, I’d have questioned their motives.
2. Wicked stained glass. Pretty colors.
3. The lower level looked exactly like Hogwarts should be. “It’s like ‘Arry Pottaire!”

Arlington National Cemetery:
Many famous dead people (JFK probably being the most famous). And some nice monuments. It ended up being the kind of place you go to say you’d been there. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was rather interesting - we saw the Changing of the Guard as well - except it turns out that they now know who the soldier was so he’s not unknown any more. Damn DNA testing. Squeezing every little bit of mystery out of our lives. And deaths.