Who Knew Being on Vacation Was Such Hard Work?

I had my first experience with the DC Metro today. It is designed along the same lines as the Metro in Paris, except the employees here don't pretend they don't understand English, and the people generally are very polite. It's a great system, fast, lots of cars per train, very efficient.

I went into Arlington to do some shopping at Pentagon City, a large mall by the Pentagon. It was absolutely huge, though not quite huge enough. (I mean really, is it so unreasonable to expect somebody to have Washington Redskins road jerseys in my size, with the name and number of a player who retired 40 years ago? Come on, Charley Taylor is in the Hall of Fame, dammit, I'm sure those puppies would absolutely FLY off the shelves!)

Next it was Georgetown, an area where there are tons of stores built in these really old buildings. Quite pretty, but again, lots of women's clothing stores, not many long-retired football player jersey stores. (It didn't even have to be Charley, I'd take Sammy Baugh too. Even Bobby Mitchell. Maybe John Riggins. Or Art Monk. Nah, not Monk.)

Now, my plan for the day was very intricate, requiring some very precise timing. Basically, I was going to randomly shlep around town until about 8 o'clock, and then go to the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument, and take wonderfully spectacular pictures in the fading light. There was a problem with my intricate plan. I'm getting old, and I'm getting fat, and it's hot here, and the blocks are a lot longer than they look on the maps. By about 3 o'clock I was tired, hungry, and thirsty. By 5 o'clock I was calling for my mummy. By 7 o'clock I was randomly wandering into busy streets screaming "Taxi! Taxi!". Drivers hear are very courteous. Or, at least, they don't want a Jeremy-sized dent on their bumpers, 'cuz nobody ran me down.

A cabbie stopped and picked me up. I told him where my hotel was, and off we went. He had a very long conversation with his dispatcher in Punjabi. Later he told me he was reluctant to take me to the hotel because, well, it's in a slum. I don't think I've mentioned that yet. But he said he could tell I was a nice guy, so he decided he'd do it. He said next time I should stay in Rossland, just across the river in Virginia. Nice neighborhood, you can walk around at night, it's just across the bridge from Georgetown, and the hotels -- not being in D.C. -- will be cheaper.

Anyway, I've posted some of the pictures I took today. The first is the C & O Creek in Georgetown. The creek, and bordering greenspace, is actually a National Park. Very pretty, though it kinda smells. Then there's a picture of the White House. Then there's a picture of the White House, without the zoom feature engaged, which gives you a better idea of how close you're allowed to get without prior clearance.

The Vietnam Memorial is quite astonishing. You don't think of 55,000 as being that big a number, but the amount of space it takes to list all those names is staggering. They had a group of kids running through while I was there, quite oblivious, and a number of people were there looking for the names of friends, brothers, sons. Part of me wanted to take a picture, but I couldn't intrude on such a personal moment.

The other pictures speak for themselves. I gotta say, our American friends sure know how to build a monument.

Back to the Smithsonian buildings tomorrow.

Somebody needs to tell my sister that I DON'T KNOW WHERE SHE LIVES. She really needs to send me an email, or else I might just end up spending all five days exploring the Original Dr. Pepper Bottling Plant and Museum in Waco. (And I think you all know I can do just that)