We arrived
at BWI on a red-eye, and we sure were tired. After the B30 bus to
Greenbelt, metro to Dupont Circle, and D6 bus to Chris’ place we were
ready to sleep. We didn’t sleep right away, because there was no place
to sleep except the floor. We’re wimps, so we decided to buy something
soft to sleep on first. This quest had us walking all over Georgetown,
taking several buses, and hitting several dead ends. However, everybody
was very friendly and helpful. There’s some stereotype on the west coast
that east coast people are unfriendly and always in a hurry. It’s not
true. We finally landed a twin size airbed with a foot pump at the Ace
hardware store.
Our
triumphant return was dampened somewhat by the fact that it took over
half an hour to inflate the thing, but as soon as we laid down we were
fast asleep. As an aside, for this trip I purchased one of
these sleeping masks,
and it works brilliantly. Keeps out almost all light, and is comfortable
enough to wear when you’re not just lying on your back. We forced
ourselves awake after a few hours to not ruin our sleeping schedule too
much, and set off for some dinner. After dinner we wandered around the
mall a little bit. Watching the Lincoln memorial from the Washington
monument, I felt really relaxed for the first time in quite a while.
The next
several days, we settled into a routine of wake up late, eat breakfast
around lunchtime, dinner around dinnertime, and something else just
before we went to bed. We didn’t see very many sights, but instead just
enjoyed wandering around. Our nicest random discovery was the map room
in the National Library. There’s a nice little exhibit outside, but
apparently the reading room there is for serious research only. So we
were told by a friendly clerk who sat at the entrance. But he did take
the time to show us around, including the back room where they keep
their collection of 7,000,000 maps.
July 4 is,
of course, a special day in DC. We attended two events. First was the
parade in the morning. I’ve been to 4th of July parades before, and they
are mostly boring. Sadly, the DC parade isn’t much different in this
regard. They had more and better bands, and one group of people riding
velocipedes, but it was not worth standing in the sun in 90-degree heat
for. Eventually we gave up and found refuge in the Museum of Natural
History’s IMAX theater. It was super busy of course, but air conditioned
and interesting.
At night we
attended A Capitol Fourth. We got to the Capitol about 5:30pm, stood in
the security line for about 20 minutes, getting increasingly worried
that all decent seats were gone. I think we got what must have been one
of the last seats on the steps, and we settled onto the hard marble.
Waiting really wasn’t all the unpleasant. There were a large number of
people to watch, photos to take, and I practiced a little bit of
harmonica. Danielle had a book and, importantly, and umbrella. It rained
twice while we were waiting. Once for maybe 20 minutes, and once for
maybe 10. We managed to stay mostly dry, although some people left.
Luckily, the
rain had the decency to stop a couple of minutes before the concert was
about to start. We thought we were just in for a classical concert, but
instead we good a nice mixture of music. The classical orchestra did
play the 1812 overture, and they had some nice big guns set up across
the water to join in. We even got a little swing dancing in towards the
end when Jerry Lee Lewis was playing. Right during Great Balls of Fire
the fireworks started. They were all behind the Washington Monument,
which made everything quite pretty. Afterward the hordes of people left,
and the metro stations were backed up all the way to the street. Lucky
for us, we took a (packed) bus home.
On July 6,
the final day in DC, Chris took us to a dim sum place. This was a first
for Danielle and I. Basically it’s a Chinese restaurant where waiters
constantly walk by with small platter of food on carts. You point to
what you want, they put it on your table and add a check mark to your
bill. Quite fun, and very tasty. We tried a couple of new things. The
most exotic thing was battered, fried chicken feet. It really felt like
you were just eating the batter and spitting out the bones, but was kind
of neat.
