The Nations Capital

This was a long awaited trip for us. I was absolutely buzzing for weeks before hand, which is a little unusual. The last couple of months for us has had it's share of stress. Myra was working on completing a very important paper for her degree, was completing research, attending conferences (more travel), and preparing for the talk she was delivering in DC, which was what brought us to that part of the world in the first place. I was pretty much doing my usual thing with work, except that we had a new boss come in and the prospect of downsizing on top of it (I'm ok, by the way). The trip away couldn't have come at a better time.

Myra left for Washington two days before me as I only had so much holiday left for the year, and we wanted to have as much time in NYC as possible (or could afford). Old friends of Myra's happen to live in Washington only a few minutes from where we were staying, which was perfect, if not a little bizarre, so we saw them and their new little girl Hannah. A perfect kid in every way. Myra will fill you in on her adventures and the conference shortly.

The day before I departed left me 100% ready for a vacation. After twelve hours at work, I had to literally run into town for my haircut (I would have been at work longer had it not been for the appointment), followed by dinner at just before 10pm, and then a bit of shut-eye for the flight the next day. After a few errands to run in the morning, I made it to the airport in good time for the flight, to then be told that it was 3 hours behind schedule. Myra didn't have a great flight with Virgin, and mine wasn't off to a good start. Delays can't be helped some times, but I was told it was due to "scheduled maintenance", which is pretty poor, to be fair. Three hours turned into five by the time we left. I managed to nap a bit on and off on the flight (I can't sleep while sitting up), and I was going to attend Myra's talk in the morning, so it looked like sleeping would make things worse at that point. There was a severe lack of transportation at the airport when we arrived in wee hours of the morning, so I had to hang around until shortly after 5am to catch a ride to the hotel, arriving on the lighter side of 6am. My phone had died, so Myra, who was expecting me a few hours earlier, didn't sleep much either, so we chatted for a bit and then got set for the day ahead. I must say, I was amazingly alert all day, which is extremely unusual for me.

After Myra's talk (which went well), I headed into downtown Washington to see the sights. One train to Union Station put me a couple of blocks from the Capitol, so I wandered over and made my way through the marathon
that was winding it's way through the streets of downtown (New York's was the following weekend), down the National Mall towards the Lincoln Memorial, and after only a few blocks got drawn into the National Gallery of Art for a few hours. There was an Ansel Adams and Georgia O'Keeffe exhibition I wanted to see which wasn't fantastic, but after looking at it now, I just realized that although there were a few Adams pieces on display in one of the rooms, I was actually in the wrong gallery (American Art Museum would have been the correct destination), which explains the poor show. Oh well. Still plenty to be seen there. I got lost in a large Albert Bierstadt painting called Lake Lucerne for ages. From there I wandered around Downtown and Chinatown for another hour and headed back to the Catholic University (which has one of the biggest Basilica's in the world) to meet Myra, Crystal, Matt and little Hannah for dinner.

We headed over to Georgetown for a bit of Thai. Georgetown is where the money is at. It was like a mini London in terms of the shopping, in one little cozy American neighborhood. The restaurant was great, and we headed over to a little ice cream and fudgery place down the street for desert - I'm still nibbling on the small block of peanut-butter and chocolate fudge as I write this. Unreal good.

Sunday was a half-day for Myra, so I wandered around Silver Spring town centre (where our hotel was) then headed to the uni to meet Myra. We started where I did the day before, except we went all the way down the mall to the Washington Monument, WWII memorial, and Lincoln Memorial, the former being nothing more than a large obelisk, the WWII display worth visiting,

and Lincoln proving to be quite the guy. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial does exactly what it was intended to do, communicating the enormous and senseless sacrifice of so many men. The weather that day was properly crap. Quite cold, drizzly, and a bit windy, so We made our way back and got some dinner before getting some shut-eye for the morning bus ride to New York. The food portions are massive. Way bigger than you could possibly need. We've gotten used to sensible servings here, and our final meal in Washington was over the top. Neither of us could get through even half of our meals. Our server, Reginald, was brand new to serving but full of spirit, giving us a quick lesson on the traditions of Italy being wine with your meal, and bread with oil. Top man.

I have to say, yet again, that as much fun and as easy as it is to dump on the US as a country, it's not quite the same with Americans as individuals (although all you have to do is look at a few random McCain supporters for the exceptions - yikes!). The people are incredibly friendly, and we were often approached for help with directions before it was requested of anyone. In nearly every shop we went into the people were super chatty and in some cases loads of fun. It's really quite refreshing.

On the flip side, if you've got something to say, best say it plainly. People don't beat around the bush - they get to the point and aren't shy about it. I gets even better in New York.

We had only two days to see Washington, but really, that's all we needed. In fact, aside from going to a few more galleries or museums, we would have struggled with what to do had our stay been any longer. Not so with New York. We packed a lot into our few days there, so I'll leave that for the next installment (or two).