A Tale of Two Cities

I wonder if there are two more different cities so close together anywhere else in the world?

An interesting journey south from New York aboard a spacious, clean, AMTRACK train  and in just over three hours we were alighting in Washington DC. What a contrast – wide tree-lined avenues, Buildings of classical proportions – and a dearth of skyscrapers. Looking up, we saw blue skies, not concrete or windows. Sitting in the cab on the way to the hotel we were driven along wide roads with room for everyone and everything was within walking distance. In many ways, the city centre reminded me of the University area of Cardiff, the Welsh capital where I spent three years at University in the late ’60s with its City Hall and the National Museum as well as the University buildings. Here we saw the Capitol, The White House, the many Smithsonian buildings, and many Federal buildings.

Although we hadn’t done much during the day other than sit on a train, we didn’t feel like walking to explore after reaching the hotel so we ate in the (freezing!) restaurant where the food was much better than the temperature! It was good to have a lazy evening and meant we were ready for an active day the next morning.

Coffee in the room, nuts and fruit in our bags. Breakfast sorted! Then we were up and out – walking along the road to the Washington Memorial and then up past the White House – near where we discovered Cosi and its amazing salads for lunch – and on past Dupont Circus until we found the yarn shop Somjit has looked up online

Looped Yarn was a treasure trove for the crocheter and the knitter in us both and we spent much of the afternoon savouring its delights and making difficult decisions about what to buy before wending our way back by a slightly different route which took us past shops and had us standing on a corner near the White House when a secret service car pulled across the road and stopped the traffic. Then another. Then, near us, a policeman on a bicycle ( we saw a few of those!).

He was near enough for me to ask what was going on. The conversation went like this:

Me: Do we know who’s coming?

Him: I do.

And the tone was clear -‘you can guess whatever you like and ask as much as you will, I won’t tell you’. We didn’t see anyone we recognised… but they may have been there.

Walking back to the hotel seemed to take a long time and I was quite tired – tired enough to suggest we eat in the bar before going up to the room. This had been a day of getting to know the streets, seeing things that you don’t necessarily notice from a tour bus. It gave us reaction time.

Once again the food was good, we were set up for an early night and a prompt start with the hop-on, hop-off near the hotel in the morning.That worked well.

How different from the hustle of New York! The buses were full ( we’re in school holidays, in the capital and approaching Independence Day). We decided to do the loop that included Arlington and the Pentagon. Suddenly, I understood just how scary it was that one of the 9/11 targets was the Pentagon. I had never realised how close to the capital it is. Now, of course, it’s not even possible to take photographs of the outside.We also had our first experience of an American shopping mall – for food again, no major purchases. They would come later!

Having done the circuit of the National Mall, with monuments to so many presidents and Martin Luther King among others, to those who gave their lives in World War II, in Korea and in Vietnam, we took the bus to Union Station to be ready for the Night Tour.

Hugely different from New York again! There I had wondered if we might have been better going up the Empire State and looking at the lights, here it was an opportunity to see memorials up close with the guide getting off the bus and walking us through the memorials to the Roosevelts, Martin Luther King Jr. and Lincoln: classic and well worth doing. It was cooler – threatening to rain – but a very manageable temperature – and we were able to appreciate the importance of these monuments in the developing pride of the nation. There are American flags everywhere, all national, sometimes accompanied by state, but nothing individual – no businesses or philanthropists with their crests anywhere prominent.

 It had been another very full day: and very enjoyable. A day of reflection and comparison, tit-bits of information along the way – ‘no statue taller than 19 feet because Freedom atop the Capitol is 19 Feet tall and nothing is greater than Freedom’, the change of colour in the marble of the Washington Monument (about a third of the way up) is because they couldn’t match the colour after the pause in building created by the Civil War…..

We were ready to collapse and acquire the strength for the next day. More big plans!!

 We had arranged to meet one of our Thai students who was studying at Georgetown university for the week, so took the Georgetown loop and then did the river trip seeing the sights from the river before walking to the arranged place – though neither he nor we actually knew where would be good to meet! It worked well. After the trip on the river – during which we were very aware of activity in the sky (helicopters seemed to be hovering over the Mall and possibly landing at the White House) and a gunboat very near us in the river. There were police cars everywhere,too. But no indication of what was happening.

We stopped at a French restaurant that was advertising a lunch deal and enjoyed both the calm and the opportunity to sit and people watch as we ate. A wander through the shops – even a couple of purchases – and there was a message from More to say that he would be early. It was SO good to see how he had changed from the quiet, but able, child I had known into a quietly confident young man, happy speaking English with us although he knew he didn’t HAVE to and thoroughly enjoying working out what he would do with his life. A burger meal for him and a drink for us and it was time for him to return and for us to catch the last bus back to the hotel and prepare for a relatively early start for our train journey to Philadelphia… moving on again..

We enjoyed a final few minutes at Union Station: what incredible edifices these transportation hubs are! – and all dressed up with flags, too!

Pennsylvania here we come!!