21
08/09
Notes on a DC Trip.
This past weekend, we spent a whirlwind 72 hours jetting off to the East Coast, hanging out with our favorite monuments and statues, centuries-old documents and moon rocks. Oh yeah – we were in beautifully muggy Washington DC to bathe in the atmosphere of the powerbrokers and influence peddlers. To dodge strollers in the Air and Space Museum. To eat things called “half-smokes” and hamburgers that take Five Male Individuals to create.
Along the way, I decided to make use of my new karlPod’s “notes” function to jot down some thoughts that passed through my typically exhausted and overheated brain. (As proof of the residual mindfunk, I just typed that as “brean.”) They mostly constitute bitching about air travel, but I’ll edit most of those out. Most. For sake of itinerary information, we left out of O’hare on a Saturday morning, flew back in on Monday evening and packed in as much touristy stuff and neighborhood exploration as humanly possible. We got a lot done, and it all started with…
August 15, 4:50AM
Whoever came up with the idea to take off all our shoes and expose our feets to the world at security wasn’t worried about bombs but was probably a foot fetishist.
August 15, 5:45AM
Air Travel is like America’s collective slumber party. Everyone is in flip-flops and sweatpants and tshirts, carrying pillows and over stuffed night bags. Tired faces and vacant up-until-3am gazes over cups of coffee purchased at 5:30. People waring things they wouldn’t go to breakfast in theor own homes while being surrounded by indifferent strangers.
It’s all very intimate in its own way, like sharing a coed dorm room with a thousand other people.
August 15, 6:30AM
Every time I get on an airplane I look around and think to myself, “These are the people that I might die with in flames.”
Then I try to remind myself that I’m going to be sitting in a chair 4 miles in the air travelling 450 miles an hour and that I really have no reason to complain.
August 15, 1PM
If you absolutely positively have to go to Washington DC, try to time it so you get there right after the August recess because there is absolutely positively no one here. Congresspeople and all their staff seem to have run home screaming, leaving just a few heat-averse tourists and camp groups in matching t-shirts, easily avoided.
August 15th, 9PM
When someone describes a neighborhood as “the Wrigleyville of DC” and you come from Chicago, you probably shouldn’t expect much. You certainly shouldn’t expect more than about 4 bars in a two block area, mixed into with falafel joints and pizza slice places.
August 16, 2:20 PM
Do’s and Donts – Don’t eat at the American History museum, unless you enjoy tasteless sandwiches that seem historical in their own right. Do take the time to visit the facilities at the National Gallery if you enjoy taking your ease surrounded by marble.
Do eat at Ben’s Chili Bowl. Double-do: Go there drunk at 2am. Don’t pay $74 for a cup of coffee in a Federal Building. They’re trying to pay off the deficit however they can and part of it involves overcharging for caffeine.
August 16, 4:45 PM
If you typically enjoy a cocktail or two when you’re at home, and those drinks have a tendency of starting at around 5pm or so, Stop That Habit before going out of town. One of the highlights of being on vacation is early afternoon beers and if they’re a regular part of your rotation in your daily life, you’re going to have to start drinking at about 9am when you’re out of town to feel like you’re being decadent.
August 17, 10AM
More Do’s and Don’ts: Whatever you do, if you don’t like being surrounded by shrieking children on your trip, Don’t go to the Air and Space museum or the Natural history museum. Kids dig dinosaurs and rockets like crazy and putting 6-year-olds in these environments is just tossing kerosene on the flames of youth.
But, Do marvel at the fact that the Smithsonian has saved tons of money by not updating jack shit at the A&S museum in about the last decade or 2. Since all progress has essentially stopped (accoring to them) in about 1984-ish, enjoy the continued existence of Pluto as a planet.
August 17, 4:20PM
It’s probably terribly shortsighted of me to assume that DC would have a lame selection of good restaurants and ethnic eats. When I realized that there are embassies from ever single freaking country on the planet in this town, and that there might be a restaurant to service every single one of them. And the Ethiopian embassy must be huge based on the number of their restaurants that I’d seen.
August 17, 5:45PM
Flying out of town on a Monday afternoon, it strikes me that you can do everything you need to within about 48 hours in this town. Burn through all the museums without dicking around should take you about 10 hours. Wander around the Mall for the monuments takes a couple hours, or about 30 minutes if you rent a Segway and don’t mind looking goofy. Go to the Archives. Don’t go to the Capitol. Eat a burger at 5 Guys. Go home.
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3 days in the life of a DC tourist. Now we can get down to business. (As soon as someone or something hires me, that is. If you need a guy to poke around the archives and inspect interesting things, I can do that.)