The Swamp of Power
Washington DC, the centre of power of arguably the most powerful nation on Earth. I didn't really know what to expect from Washington beyond the well known sights such as the monuments and the White House. Fortunately we didn't need to think too much about where to stay and the like as we were visiting our friends Andy and Siobhan who kindly let us stay with them and their sons Anthony and Liam.
Andy picked us up at the airport and was waiting for us by the baggage carousel. This struck us as a bit of a security risk, not that Andy himself was allowed into the aiport, but that anyone can wander in and help themselves to whatever luggage they liked. This was the system at all the US airports we went to, even for international flights where you might have to spend a long time coming in through customs. Maybe Washington's citizens are all law abiding though as we got all our bags and headed over to Andy's car. Well, Siobhan's car as Andy's Mustang is less suited to picking up people and luggage than her PT Cruiser. We have these in the UK too - they're the ones that look like a 30's retro wagon, very American and large. In the States they look small and almost European.
The roads were empty which surprised me, though I suppose it was nearing midnight. Andy and Siobhan live in Anandale, Virginia, about 15 miles outside the centre of DC and even though it was dark, I was struck by the leafyness of the area. Gentle hills, tree-lined avenues and well kept lawns. It seemed hard to believe we were really close to a major city. Andy said they even had deer wandering around the woods. We arrived home and were welcomed by Siobhan and baby Liam, who were watching the biggest TV I've seen; a large projector was showing a late night comedy chat show, the sort that has a band to stab out a bar or two when a guest arrives or the host makes a witty comment, just so you know it's funny. It was getting late, so after a welcome beer, a nacho or two and a good chinwag, we headed to bed and a good night's sleep.
The next morning, Andy offered to drive us around the highlights of Washington so we could get our bearings and some idea of where to go on our day in town. But first, lunch, and a trip to the local diner. It was a proper diner with a parking lot and chrome, burgers served with huge portions of fries, huge soda buckets and infinite refills of coffee. Away from the fast-food joints, the burgers here do actually taste pretty good.
We left Siobhan to go back with baby Liam, while Esther, myself and Anthony got to go in "Daddy's car" with Andy. We slapped on the goopey-goo to protect us from the rather harsh sun, put the top down, gunned the engine and headed off to cruise the city in style.
Again, traffic was remarkably light and we quickly reached the Pentagon building which seems oddly situated by the freeway, on its own in terms of buildings but surrounded by vast car parks. You could see quite clearly the new wing that was rebuilt after the damage caused by the September 11th attacks.
Before we knew it, we'd crossed the bridge over the Potomac River into downtown DC. We drove along past the
Washington Monument (the tall needle like structure at one end of the reflecting pool), past the White House, and on up the main drag past the museums, monuments and up to Capitol Hill. Washington is a low-rise city, with big wide streets, vast white buildings and lots of green open spaces, all very uniform and neat. We passed the Capitol Building and up into a plush residential area. At this point Andy decided to take us a mystery tour, largely because it was a mystery to him as well as us. We drove through some very nice neighbourhoods, reminiscent of St Johns Wood in London, 
although Anthony didn't seem to appreciate them and fell asleep. We goo-ed him again as the sun was still very fierce and continued on our tour. We went down a "secret road" that only the locals know about. It's got signs saying you can't enter but apparently these lie. Okay, they don't lie, as there's some small print at the bottom saying when it can and can't be used. This is generally a problem with US road signs. Everywhere else in the world, signs use symbols that can be quickly understood. In the US, they write essays in a variety of text sizes and expect you to read them as you pass. In a country with a pretty high illiteracy rate, this is kind of worrying. Maybe it's the reason for the low speed limits, to help give you time. We used our pretty tree-lined shortcut to cross over to the area where the Watergate Hotel can be found. This is a large sprawling complex that looks like it hasn't changed much since it was made famous in the first of many *gate scandals. The next area we saw as Georgetown, which looked very different to the main drag with its museums. This was a town high street, not unlike Marlybone High Street, with boutique shops, coffee houses and the like. We passed the very old looking Georgetown University where Siobahn had studied which looked as though it would compete pretty well in terms of looks with the venerable establisments in the UK. We drove on, through the parks of trees gifted by the Japanese that bloom with cherry blossom in spring (we're told) and then we had to admit defeat against the heat. It was incredibly hot and we were wilting fast. We raised the top, turned on the air conditioning and breathed cool air and a sigh of relief.
On the way home we decided to call into a shopping mall and buy a city guide for Washington. The nearest mall was Tyson's Corner. This seemed to excite Anthony greeatly and he kept muttering "Tyson's Corner" to himself. "What's at Tyson's Corner Anthony?" asked Andy. "Burgerfries" came the answer I'm sure was not the one Andy was expecting, as you'd think the playground would be foremost in his mind. Kids eh? In fact we didn't get anything there and just drove around the enormous parking lot searching for an elusive space for ten minutes or so before giving up and going somewhere else. So I can't tell you much about the place and its legendary burgerfries.
But I can tell you a bit more about Anandale. The lawns are immaculate. You can tell it's a place where people care what their neighbours think. They're also proud to be American. There are plenty of garden flagpoles flying the stars and stripes. I'd always thought the neighbourhood of Wisteria Lane from Desperate Housewives was a bit of an exageration, rather like the town in Edward Scissorhands. But it's really not far from the truth. I don't think Andy and Siobhan have murderers and blackmailers living in their street, but you never know. We stayed indoors, hiding from the heat, which was aparrently a sultry 100°F, and humid. According to Siobahn, Washington was built on the site of a swamp, and despite the efforts used to tame the land, there's little that can be done about the weather which for a few days each summer reaches uncomfortably high temperatures. Looks like we'd planned our visit to coincide with those few days for 2006.
We had dinner at another local institution, a Texan restaurant that did superb steaks, nachos, fajitas and the like, arranged in classic style with booths around a large bar. The place was enormous, as were the steaks. That evening we decided that if we were to survive the US, we'd need to reduce our intake to maybe one shared starter, and maybe even shared main. Or should I say "entree". For some reason, in the States an entree is the main course, unlike in the country where word presumably originates, as for the French this is your starter. I'm pleased to report that we never saw any "freedom fries" and that, at least on the East Coast, sanity has returned to normal(ish).
The next day we headed out in the other direction - me, Anthony and Andy in Daddy's Car and the others in the PT cruiser. This time we didn't even attempt putting the top down as it was even hotter than the previous day. We were heading for the border with West Virginia and the historically important town of Harper's Ferry. The journey took us through the neatest farmland I've ever seen. It was all white picket fences with horses frolicking in paddocks (okay, they were standing there, but I like the word), pretty ponds, and whitewashed buildings. Growing up in Devon, I was used to seeing places with gates you had to drag open, rusting farm tractors, courtyards of waterlogged mud. This was clearly an area where farmers were very wealthy. Or worried what their (distant) neighbours thought in a scaled up version of Wisteria Lane. This was all a pleasant surprise to me. The America I knew was the stuff we see on television - New York, Los Angeles, cowboy films with dust. About the closest thing you get to this is South Park, and that hardly does it justice. Simply beautiful.
Arriving at Harper's Ferry, we parked in the large car park outside town. We had the choice of joining the vast majority in taking shuttle buses into the town, or walking through the woods which we thought would be nice. It was nice, but not ideal terrain for walking with a three year old and his 10 month old brother.
Siobhan soldiered on with Liam while Andy and I swapped Anthony between our shoulders. We arrived in the town some fifteen minutes later gasping for drink, and set about looking for a café.
Harper's Ferry is famous for its role in the American civil war. I very quickly realised how little I knew of American history. I knew there was a civil war, I knew there was a war of independence but I think they were all mixed up in my mind. I didn't know when they were, who the main players were, or how on earth the battle of Little Big Horn with General Custer and the Indians could fit into things. But Harper's Ferry was a good place to try and sort some of this out.
It was a town where buildings were restored inside and out, with people in period costume who could answer questions about the historical events. The trouble was, all the information boards assumed a lot of prior knowledge without which the information was not really meaningful. This famous person stayed here, another one planned that battle there. I needed a crash course in American history, and felt too stupid to ask the very hot looking man with the tunic and guns.
We visited the twee gift shops, though didn't really find anything worth buying, and a few shops that were restored manned by people in costume. I wasn't entirely sure if they were selling the produce in these places or if it was just a museum. It was a nice place to stroll around, and the view over the river separating the states was picturesque. But again the heat took its toll, and after lunch and a bit more wandering we retreated back to the air-conditioned comfort of the cars and headed home.
We still had plenty of afternoon left, so headed up to the local swimming pool for a refreshing dip. What a place. The pool is kind of a social club, where the members own the place, and to be a member you have to be local and buy a share from a departing member. After a while on the waiting list, Andy and Siobhan now were not only members, but on the board helping run it. And well run it is. It's a large lido-style pool with toddler sections, swim lanes, diving areas and so on, all looked over by a number of life guards who swap places every half hour or so to make sure they're alert. Every hour a whistle will blow and all the kids have to get out of the pool for a wonderful 10 minutes while the adults have the place to themselves. Apparently this is to make sure the little ones rest and have a chance to use the restrooms (i.e. loos), as they get a bit carried away having fun. People could also have barbeques and there was even a film showing there that night. If only we had something like that.
The next day we were unleashed on the city on our own as our hosts had to work. We got a lift to the metro and headed into the centre. We were looking for the post office to send some stuff home, and in asking directions also got pointed towards the Old Post Office, an amazing building, originally scheduled for demolition but fortunately saved. It is now a shopping mall, but we didn't stay long - there was a stage there on which were dancing a number of sickly sweet teenagers singing something that would make even Disney fans cringe. But the audience of presumably parents seemed to be enjoying it.
We wandered in what was now ridiculous heat amongst the museums, heading for the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, supposedly the most popular attraction in Washington. It houses the sort of thing you can't hope to see anywhere else - NASA capsules as used by astronauts returning from the Moon, actual planes flown by the Wright Brothers and in the first Atlantic crossings, inter-continental ballistic missiles (both US and Soviet), the Breitling Orbiter baloon that beat Richard Branson in circumnavigating the world. All in all, a great place, and it offered respite from the unearthly temperatures outside too. Maybe we should have borrowed some space suits.
We walked through the parks down to the Washington Monument, en route to the city's other must-see, the president's house. I was surprised how close we could get given the security that must be required to protect Dubya. I must admit the grounds of the White House beat Downing Street hands down, though Buckingham Palace wins on scale.
We'd spent a suprisingly long time in the museum, and it was time to head back, though the heat had finished us off anyway. We waited on the crowded platform of the metro, sweating buckets and dreading the train journey. The train arrived, the doors opened and a wonderful wall of cool air poured over us. London Underground should invest whatever is necessary to solve their air-con problem. It'd make the city so much more pleasant to live in.
That evening, Andy was preparing a "cook out". Apparently that's American for barbeque, barbeque is any sort of flame grill, and broil is grill. Unfortunately the swamp location foiled us again as the number of mosquitoes and other biting insects made staying in the garden an ordeal and although we cooked out, we ate in. Still, nice food.
We were planning on moving onto New York the next day, spending as night or two there before moving onto Boston. It should be easy; New York is also unbearably hot at this time of year, so accommodation should be cheap. Err, no. The cheapest room we could find was an extortionate $400 a night. We decided to abandon New York to the heat, and started looking for accommodation in Boston. Same problem, nothing available for less than $300 a night. We ended up spending the entire day trawling though websites and in the end decided to travel to Boston but immediately pick up a car and travel around New England and reserved a hotel in Boston for later that month.
We thanked our hosts for a very nice introduction to the States, and snuck out first thing in the morning for the train station, leaving my second pair of sunglasses in the taxi. Two in two weeks - this could be a record.
Andy picked us up at the airport and was waiting for us by the baggage carousel. This struck us as a bit of a security risk, not that Andy himself was allowed into the aiport, but that anyone can wander in and help themselves to whatever luggage they liked. This was the system at all the US airports we went to, even for international flights where you might have to spend a long time coming in through customs. Maybe Washington's citizens are all law abiding though as we got all our bags and headed over to Andy's car. Well, Siobhan's car as Andy's Mustang is less suited to picking up people and luggage than her PT Cruiser. We have these in the UK too - they're the ones that look like a 30's retro wagon, very American and large. In the States they look small and almost European.
The roads were empty which surprised me, though I suppose it was nearing midnight. Andy and Siobhan live in Anandale, Virginia, about 15 miles outside the centre of DC and even though it was dark, I was struck by the leafyness of the area. Gentle hills, tree-lined avenues and well kept lawns. It seemed hard to believe we were really close to a major city. Andy said they even had deer wandering around the woods. We arrived home and were welcomed by Siobhan and baby Liam, who were watching the biggest TV I've seen; a large projector was showing a late night comedy chat show, the sort that has a band to stab out a bar or two when a guest arrives or the host makes a witty comment, just so you know it's funny. It was getting late, so after a welcome beer, a nacho or two and a good chinwag, we headed to bed and a good night's sleep.
The next morning, Andy offered to drive us around the highlights of Washington so we could get our bearings and some idea of where to go on our day in town. But first, lunch, and a trip to the local diner. It was a proper diner with a parking lot and chrome, burgers served with huge portions of fries, huge soda buckets and infinite refills of coffee. Away from the fast-food joints, the burgers here do actually taste pretty good.We left Siobhan to go back with baby Liam, while Esther, myself and Anthony got to go in "Daddy's car" with Andy. We slapped on the goopey-goo to protect us from the rather harsh sun, put the top down, gunned the engine and headed off to cruise the city in style.Again, traffic was remarkably light and we quickly reached the Pentagon building which seems oddly situated by the freeway, on its own in terms of buildings but surrounded by vast car parks. You could see quite clearly the new wing that was rebuilt after the damage caused by the September 11th attacks.
Before we knew it, we'd crossed the bridge over the Potomac River into downtown DC. We drove along past the
Washington Monument (the tall needle like structure at one end of the reflecting pool), past the White House, and on up the main drag past the museums, monuments and up to Capitol Hill. Washington is a low-rise city, with big wide streets, vast white buildings and lots of green open spaces, all very uniform and neat. We passed the Capitol Building and up into a plush residential area. At this point Andy decided to take us a mystery tour, largely because it was a mystery to him as well as us. We drove through some very nice neighbourhoods, reminiscent of St Johns Wood in London, although Anthony didn't seem to appreciate them and fell asleep. We goo-ed him again as the sun was still very fierce and continued on our tour. We went down a "secret road" that only the locals know about. It's got signs saying you can't enter but apparently these lie. Okay, they don't lie, as there's some small print at the bottom saying when it can and can't be used. This is generally a problem with US road signs. Everywhere else in the world, signs use symbols that can be quickly understood. In the US, they write essays in a variety of text sizes and expect you to read them as you pass. In a country with a pretty high illiteracy rate, this is kind of worrying. Maybe it's the reason for the low speed limits, to help give you time. We used our pretty tree-lined shortcut to cross over to the area where the Watergate Hotel can be found. This is a large sprawling complex that looks like it hasn't changed much since it was made famous in the first of many *gate scandals. The next area we saw as Georgetown, which looked very different to the main drag with its museums. This was a town high street, not unlike Marlybone High Street, with boutique shops, coffee houses and the like. We passed the very old looking Georgetown University where Siobahn had studied which looked as though it would compete pretty well in terms of looks with the venerable establisments in the UK. We drove on, through the parks of trees gifted by the Japanese that bloom with cherry blossom in spring (we're told) and then we had to admit defeat against the heat. It was incredibly hot and we were wilting fast. We raised the top, turned on the air conditioning and breathed cool air and a sigh of relief.On the way home we decided to call into a shopping mall and buy a city guide for Washington. The nearest mall was Tyson's Corner. This seemed to excite Anthony greeatly and he kept muttering "Tyson's Corner" to himself. "What's at Tyson's Corner Anthony?" asked Andy. "Burgerfries" came the answer I'm sure was not the one Andy was expecting, as you'd think the playground would be foremost in his mind. Kids eh? In fact we didn't get anything there and just drove around the enormous parking lot searching for an elusive space for ten minutes or so before giving up and going somewhere else. So I can't tell you much about the place and its legendary burgerfries.
But I can tell you a bit more about Anandale. The lawns are immaculate. You can tell it's a place where people care what their neighbours think. They're also proud to be American. There are plenty of garden flagpoles flying the stars and stripes. I'd always thought the neighbourhood of Wisteria Lane from Desperate Housewives was a bit of an exageration, rather like the town in Edward Scissorhands. But it's really not far from the truth. I don't think Andy and Siobhan have murderers and blackmailers living in their street, but you never know. We stayed indoors, hiding from the heat, which was aparrently a sultry 100°F, and humid. According to Siobahn, Washington was built on the site of a swamp, and despite the efforts used to tame the land, there's little that can be done about the weather which for a few days each summer reaches uncomfortably high temperatures. Looks like we'd planned our visit to coincide with those few days for 2006.
We had dinner at another local institution, a Texan restaurant that did superb steaks, nachos, fajitas and the like, arranged in classic style with booths around a large bar. The place was enormous, as were the steaks. That evening we decided that if we were to survive the US, we'd need to reduce our intake to maybe one shared starter, and maybe even shared main. Or should I say "entree". For some reason, in the States an entree is the main course, unlike in the country where word presumably originates, as for the French this is your starter. I'm pleased to report that we never saw any "freedom fries" and that, at least on the East Coast, sanity has returned to normal(ish).
The next day we headed out in the other direction - me, Anthony and Andy in Daddy's Car and the others in the PT cruiser. This time we didn't even attempt putting the top down as it was even hotter than the previous day. We were heading for the border with West Virginia and the historically important town of Harper's Ferry. The journey took us through the neatest farmland I've ever seen. It was all white picket fences with horses frolicking in paddocks (okay, they were standing there, but I like the word), pretty ponds, and whitewashed buildings. Growing up in Devon, I was used to seeing places with gates you had to drag open, rusting farm tractors, courtyards of waterlogged mud. This was clearly an area where farmers were very wealthy. Or worried what their (distant) neighbours thought in a scaled up version of Wisteria Lane. This was all a pleasant surprise to me. The America I knew was the stuff we see on television - New York, Los Angeles, cowboy films with dust. About the closest thing you get to this is South Park, and that hardly does it justice. Simply beautiful.
Arriving at Harper's Ferry, we parked in the large car park outside town. We had the choice of joining the vast majority in taking shuttle buses into the town, or walking through the woods which we thought would be nice. It was nice, but not ideal terrain for walking with a three year old and his 10 month old brother.
Siobhan soldiered on with Liam while Andy and I swapped Anthony between our shoulders. We arrived in the town some fifteen minutes later gasping for drink, and set about looking for a café.Harper's Ferry is famous for its role in the American civil war. I very quickly realised how little I knew of American history. I knew there was a civil war, I knew there was a war of independence but I think they were all mixed up in my mind. I didn't know when they were, who the main players were, or how on earth the battle of Little Big Horn with General Custer and the Indians could fit into things. But Harper's Ferry was a good place to try and sort some of this out.
It was a town where buildings were restored inside and out, with people in period costume who could answer questions about the historical events. The trouble was, all the information boards assumed a lot of prior knowledge without which the information was not really meaningful. This famous person stayed here, another one planned that battle there. I needed a crash course in American history, and felt too stupid to ask the very hot looking man with the tunic and guns.We visited the twee gift shops, though didn't really find anything worth buying, and a few shops that were restored manned by people in costume. I wasn't entirely sure if they were selling the produce in these places or if it was just a museum. It was a nice place to stroll around, and the view over the river separating the states was picturesque. But again the heat took its toll, and after lunch and a bit more wandering we retreated back to the air-conditioned comfort of the cars and headed home.
We still had plenty of afternoon left, so headed up to the local swimming pool for a refreshing dip. What a place. The pool is kind of a social club, where the members own the place, and to be a member you have to be local and buy a share from a departing member. After a while on the waiting list, Andy and Siobhan now were not only members, but on the board helping run it. And well run it is. It's a large lido-style pool with toddler sections, swim lanes, diving areas and so on, all looked over by a number of life guards who swap places every half hour or so to make sure they're alert. Every hour a whistle will blow and all the kids have to get out of the pool for a wonderful 10 minutes while the adults have the place to themselves. Apparently this is to make sure the little ones rest and have a chance to use the restrooms (i.e. loos), as they get a bit carried away having fun. People could also have barbeques and there was even a film showing there that night. If only we had something like that.
The next day we were unleashed on the city on our own as our hosts had to work. We got a lift to the metro and headed into the centre. We were looking for the post office to send some stuff home, and in asking directions also got pointed towards the Old Post Office, an amazing building, originally scheduled for demolition but fortunately saved. It is now a shopping mall, but we didn't stay long - there was a stage there on which were dancing a number of sickly sweet teenagers singing something that would make even Disney fans cringe. But the audience of presumably parents seemed to be enjoying it.
We wandered in what was now ridiculous heat amongst the museums, heading for the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, supposedly the most popular attraction in Washington. It houses the sort of thing you can't hope to see anywhere else - NASA capsules as used by astronauts returning from the Moon, actual planes flown by the Wright Brothers and in the first Atlantic crossings, inter-continental ballistic missiles (both US and Soviet), the Breitling Orbiter baloon that beat Richard Branson in circumnavigating the world. All in all, a great place, and it offered respite from the unearthly temperatures outside too. Maybe we should have borrowed some space suits.
We walked through the parks down to the Washington Monument, en route to the city's other must-see, the president's house. I was surprised how close we could get given the security that must be required to protect Dubya. I must admit the grounds of the White House beat Downing Street hands down, though Buckingham Palace wins on scale.We'd spent a suprisingly long time in the museum, and it was time to head back, though the heat had finished us off anyway. We waited on the crowded platform of the metro, sweating buckets and dreading the train journey. The train arrived, the doors opened and a wonderful wall of cool air poured over us. London Underground should invest whatever is necessary to solve their air-con problem. It'd make the city so much more pleasant to live in.
That evening, Andy was preparing a "cook out". Apparently that's American for barbeque, barbeque is any sort of flame grill, and broil is grill. Unfortunately the swamp location foiled us again as the number of mosquitoes and other biting insects made staying in the garden an ordeal and although we cooked out, we ate in. Still, nice food.
We were planning on moving onto New York the next day, spending as night or two there before moving onto Boston. It should be easy; New York is also unbearably hot at this time of year, so accommodation should be cheap. Err, no. The cheapest room we could find was an extortionate $400 a night. We decided to abandon New York to the heat, and started looking for accommodation in Boston. Same problem, nothing available for less than $300 a night. We ended up spending the entire day trawling though websites and in the end decided to travel to Boston but immediately pick up a car and travel around New England and reserved a hotel in Boston for later that month.
We thanked our hosts for a very nice introduction to the States, and snuck out first thing in the morning for the train station, leaving my second pair of sunglasses in the taxi. Two in two weeks - this could be a record.
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