D.C

After Philly, we took another train to the nation’s capital.  We were there for three days and rather intensively bounced around all of its (mostly free) sights and museums. DC isn’t very big, and one can walk it fairly easily when the temperature isn’t in the mid-thirties and the air isn’t like breathing through a sponge. Both of which it was while we were there, but we still marched about a fair bit. 

The first night, we walked over to the Lincoln memorial from our hotel near Dupont Circle. We got there for dusk, which made for some dramatic lighting.

  

I will mention that the climate of D.C is particularly favourable to all manner of midge, mozzy and gnat.  I will also mention that that reflecting pool you can see above, which is next to Lincoln, is a really big body of standing water, alongside which we were walking at dusk.  So I was thoroughly exsanguinated by the time I took those snaps. Chan retrieved my camera from my desiccated remains and went on her way.

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Monuments aside, the big things to get around are the various Smithsonian facilities. Well there is this, I guess:

The newer, non-burning version

The secret service are spectacularly poorly named, by the way.  They also look bored as hell.  You’d best not put down your backpack/umbrella/toddler for more than three seconds, because they’ll controlled-explosion that motherfucker in a heartbeat.

We did also get to the Capitol building (don’t tell them; they’ve been spelling it like that for ages now and it’ll just be embarrassing) where I tried to understand their system of government (Short version: Congress = Parliament; Senate = the Lords, only someone voted for them; Representatives = the Commons).  We caught a Republican rally outside, demonstrating against the most recent dealings with Iran.  Sarah Palin was there. Somehow Jesus and abortion entered the discussion. She sounded like she possibly spends her spare time driving rivets with her forehead.

Durrka derrrrr!

Back to the Smithsonian: evidently it got its name from a British scientist called James Smithson who bequeathed the yanks his fortune to set up facilities to spread knowledge and wisdom in that fledgling nation. Nice chap.  Anyway, we got around the Air and Space, American History and Natural History museums.  There’s a lot to see, but here’s some edited highlights. 

From the American History Museum:

  
Ruby slippers from the Wizard of Oz; The original Kermit; Julia Child’s kitchen (American Delia Smith); Old containers from McDonalds that made me more nostalgic than I expected

From the Air and Space Museum:

 

  
A Fokker; An X-15; A brace of A-wasters; Nazi Germany’s best London landscaper; A Hubble

Natural History Museum:

  
The Hope Diamond; A massive Bird-eating Spider that plainly wanted to eat my face; A T-Rex; a cast taken from a Giant Squid.  Bit eclectic, this one.

We also took a night guided tour around D.C, which was insightful. But while we doing that, we found someone we recognised.  Back when we were in New York Penn Station waiting for our train to Philly, there was an issue with the incoming train and a certain amount of chaos ensued.  The Station Master, Mr Jermaine Jones, came down to the floor and reorganised the trains on the ground, shifting half of our train onto another route to minimise drama on our train, and get that crowd to their destination quicker.  He kept us all in the loop and got around everyone making sure we all knew what was happening.  All in all an excellent face for Amtrak, and many grumbles were averted. 

The man at work. Brit rail firms take note.

Anyway, shifting back to D.C: Chan spotted him in the queue for our night tour because my wife is terrifying.  We introduced ourselves and he was delighted to be spotted (even though he was travelling incognito for some ‘me’ time.  I suggested a false beard and glasses next time).  He insisted on a photo:

So that was a fun (if somewhat unlikely) encounter.
When we were done here,  we picked up Das Auto and resumed our journey on the road.

Kurzfassung auf Deutsch: Wir haben ein paar Tage in Washington DC verbracht. Während wir dort waren, haben wir das Weiße Haus und das Capitol besuchten.  Das Smithsonian hat sehr vielseitige Ausstellungen.  Wir haben den Bahnhofsvorsteher von der Penn Station in New York wiedergesehen, der hat uns früher in unserer Reise geholfen. Das war überraschend!

Philly

Right, I’ve got a minute. 

Having done our time in the Big Apple, we took another Amtrak train across to Philadelphia.  It’s a significant place in American history with plenty of monuments and plaques for various Founding Father types, but shockingly nothing for the Fresh Prince. Rocky has one or two, though.

I wasn’t sure what to expect of Philly; probably something like Chicago, bearing in mind it’s the sixth most populous city in the US.  What it actually is more ‘towny’, for want of a better adjective: a lot less in the way of tall buildings than the other major cities we’ve visited and a lot more spread out.  The feel of it is a bit like Charleston, and so was a definite change of pace from New York.

Den of sedition

Philly is where the Founding Fathers (or arch traitors, depending on your perspective) debated and wrote the Declaration of Independence and U.S Constitution.  It’s also the home to the Liberty Bell: an absolute dud we sold them (it broke as soon as they used it) that has had a lot more success as a metaphor.

No refunds

We were only there for a couple of days, so we got around the necessary things like the Hall of Independence and the aforementioned failed-bell, and we went on another walking tour with a local to point out the various less obvious places, like where the Founding Fathers kicked back, tied their cravats (or whatever 18th century shit they  wore) around their heads and drank unto oblivion:

It turns out the landlord was probably a spy too.  It’s poor form when you can’t trust the walls of the boozer to keep  all your delicious secret plans of revolution in confidence.

Ben Franklin features heavily.  He’s one of those guys I keep thinking I’m mistaking for someone else because he did everything: “Wait, was he the guy with the key in the kite or the bloke signed the Declaration of Independence? Was he first Yank ambassador to France or the guy that came up with Bifocals?”.
He was all that and more. He was the Swiss army knife of revolutionary agitants, and the burgeoning U.S were cosmically lucky to have him.

 
And they made a statue of him made of keys

We took a walk around Elfreth’s alley, which is preserved Terraced-street which was notable because its residents were split along Loyalist/Patriot lines.  It worked out a bit better for one of those groups, apparently: the resident Brit lover was hanged for collusion after we bailed.

   
Someone bet on the wrong horse

Otherwise, the waterfront is pretty and also has an interesting pair of battleships and a bonus sub.

  

We went to a couple of great restaurants but nothing quite beat the majesty of a legitimate Philly Cheese Steak:

Total artery carnage

We’ll have to go here again, as I didn’t get a chance to run up the steps from Rocky while meditating on the film’s timeless message about the merits of being hit in the head repeatedly and not falling over.

Oh, and we had a nice chat with our Hungarian Uber driver on the way to the station for our train to DC. Hi, Ferenc!

Kurzfassung auf Deutsch: Wir haben ein paar Tage in Philadelphia geblieben. Es ist interessant, die Heimat der amerikanischen Revolution zu sehen, auch wenn wir die Bösen sind.

Holding pattern

I was almost caught up with you lot but the next thing I know, we’ve been in and out of Philly, then DC and then we were back on the road again.   The car is an improvement:

Das Auto

It’s a German car, but some of the trim came off in the boot so I’m assuming it was made in the US.

I will attempt to write something more substantial when I have a minute. In the meantime: wait longer.