Speed Blogging: Washington edition

Dating is a pain in the neck. We haven’t done it in years, but we know this to be true from people who still do it, who tell us that it’s an enormous effort with a low chance of success. In the last few years, some enterprising businessmen came up with a solution: speed dating. Basically, it allows you to cut out all the time-consuming getting-to-know-you stuff while still getting some information about the essence of your date.

We have a similar problem (and we hope you understand we mean that figuratively). This blog is our means of getting information out to our family and friends in an efficient manner, but once you fall far behind, it becomes a pain in the neck to catch up. In the spirit of not letting down our reading public, and based on our wisdom that there are no loftier role models than dating services, we now present to you … Speed Blogging^®. 

This basically means a brief synopsis of each day, followed by a few photos from that day. Today's blog entry will Speed Blog the entirety of the Washington leg of our trip. (No update to the map for this entry, since we were in or near Washington for all the days covered here.) 

We are under no illusion that Speed Blogging^® will provide as pleasing or complete a record of our journey as we’d originally intended. (This is also much like speed dating, which only really guarantees that you’ll be kissing your twelfth frog while conventional daters are working on kissing their first one.) With any luck, we will revisit these entries later to flesh them out. In the meantime, at least you won’t be paralyzed with suspense about what happened on ...

Day 8 (April 13)

We took an all-day tour of Washington via OnBoard tours.We highly recommend this approach (take a survey tour on your first day, then spend the rest of the trip filling in the gaps or seeing things in more detail). We also recommend this tour company. After the tour, we were exhausted, and Sandy was feeling a little under the weather, so we picked up food from Cafe Pizzaiolo. Verdict: the pizza was OK, but the salad was excellent.

The Marine Monument (based on the famous photo taken at Iwo Jima)

Springtime in Washington

Night skyline from Sadiq's window

Day 9 (April 14)

Sandy was really not feeling well, so we stayed at the apartment for much of the day. That was just as well, as the skies were overcast and drizzly. For part of the afternoon, Zahid visited the Supreme Court (which was not, unfortunately, in session). Later that night, Sadiq arrived in town and the three of us met up with Zahid’s cousin Hadi, Hadi's wife Ambreen, and their middle daughter Dania at a very good Lebanese restaurant called Lebanese Taverna.

A rare empty Metro station during "Tourist Month"

The Supreme Court building

Day 10 (April 15)

Zahid took a “photo safari” tour—really a photo class that uses tourist locations as photo subjects. The tour itself was really good, featuring good advice from a seeminly knowledgeable guide, as well as ideas on the best locations from which to shoot Washington landmarks. In addition, since it was Tax Day, we got the opportunity to see tax protesters at work. The downside is that the day was cold and miserable, making it the least enjoyable morning of the trip so far despite the good tour.

In the afternoon, Sandy joined Zahid at the National Archives. This turned out to be her favorite destination of the DC leg of our trip. Besides the well-known contents of the archives (e.g., the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and Bill of Rights), there are a lot of lesser known items in the collection—for instance, one of four original copies of the Magna Carta, genealogical records (including immigration records from Ellis Island), photos, and videos.

Aspiring writers or screenwriters should visit the Archives; there are so many stories chronicled in the Archives that are just waiting to be turned into books and movies. It was really a fascinating place.

Dinner was at Five Guys Burgers,which came highly recommended. Verdict: good burgers, and even better fries.

Yes, that is, in fact, a monument to Albert Einstein. Who would have thought?

This is one of two sets of statues that face the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall.

Honest (and stern) Abe

The Constitution. For reals.

Sadiq mentioned that he saw Tom Brokaw on The Colbert Report some time last week, talking about his Highway 50 book. We later looked up the clip on YouTube. Here it is—just fast-forward to the 5:21 mark:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Obama's European Trip - Tom Brokaw
colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor NASA Name Contest

Day 11 (April 16)

We started the day at the Sculpture Garden (at the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum), which has a small but interesting collection of modern sculpture. We then headed to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. This is, of course, the favorite part of any little boy’s visit to Washington DC, and Zahid was no exception—when he was a little boy, that is. But it was still fun even for grown-ups. In particular, there was an exhibit of large photographs taken by the Cassini mission to Saturn. You can check out these photos on spacedaily.com.

After the Air and Space Museum, we met our friend Kathryn (and her two baby twins, Danica and Sabrina) for lunch. We ate at the café at the Sculpture Garden, which featured decent food in a much quieter atmosphere than the chaos of the Air and Space Museum.

We next visited the Holocaust Museum.There’s not much to say about this place—it’s a must-see, but be warned that it is a scary and moving experience (many visitors leave in tears). Beyond reminding us the brutality of the Holocaust itself, visiting this museum made us think about whether we’ve really learned anything. Genocide has continued to be a recurring theme over the last 60 years, so the heightened visibility of what happened to European Jews does not seem to be serving its intended purpose

The museum currently features an exhibit on Nazi propaganda.The Nazis, from Hitler on down, were brilliant innovators in that arena, and we recognized some of their tactics from recent American politics—from the use of fear to suppress dissent, to the use of the cult of personality to promote visceral (rather than rational) reactions.

We had an invitation to dinner from Zahid’s old law school buddy Pete, so we cut short our museum visit to head out to Fairfax, Virginia. We got to catch up with Pete, as well as meet his son Matthew (age: 12 months), his wife Hai-Hong, and her parents. We feasted on a meal of Chinese dumplings—more than we could possibly eat, but we did our level best. It was a great meal but an even better opportunity to catch up with an old friend.

My company actually advertises in DC. Specifically, in this one Metro station, where there are five identical ads. I'm sure there's a good reason for that. Woodrow Wilson gets a memorial, too. The Sculpture Garden is not for arachnophobes. The space program is not for claustrophobes. John Glenn spent five hours in space in this capsule that's not much bigger than a person.

Day 12 (April 17)

This was to be our last full day in Washington, so we really had to prioritize to make sure we visited the places we wanted most to see. We started with Arlington National Cemetery, where presidents, Supreme Court justices, and war heroes are interred. This site was also historically the home of General Robert E Lee, but he vacated once the Civil War broke out. We took a bus tour through the cemetery to make sure we saw most of the notable gravesites.

We then took the Metro to the Smithsonian’s American History Museum. This museum was fascinating and deserved more time than we gave it, but we were pushing to squeeze everything in. Among the exhibits we did see were one on the process of inventing, a temporary exhibit featuring photos of Washington DC’s African-American community by the Scurlock family, and the transplanted kitchen of chef Julia Child.

We did a better job at our next stop, the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery and American Art Museum, which are located in the same building. We did not see every exhibit, but we saw most of the permanent exhibit. We spent the most time at the American Presidents exhibit.

Late in the afternoon, Sandy headed back to the apartment. Zahid stayed in Washington a little longer to take some twilight and night photos (he’d been dragging around a tripod all day), but after one very long trudge to the capitol, he gave it up and headed back himself. Despite the early finish to the night, we ended up achieving a busy and tiring itinerary that made for one of our trip’s most rewarding days.

RFK's grave at Arlington National Cemetery

A great portrait of Lincoln from the America's Presidents exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery.

A closeup of the famous Obama portrait. I never knew it had these bits of print and newsprint in it.

What we missed in DC

There were a great many sights and museums in Washington we did not see. Some of the obvious ones (such as the White House and Capitol tours) simply do not hold much interest for us. There are others we definitely would have seen had we had time; these include theNewseum, the Library of Congress, and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. And then there were a places that were on the bubble, such as the Smithsonian’s Natural History and Postal museums, the Spy Museum, and the Gallaudet campus.

OK, that just about wraps it up for today's edition of Speed Blogging^®.  Join us next time when we'll recap our stop in the City That Never Sleeps.