Jan 7, 2017 Daily Life, Ramblings and Musings
My D.C. Adventure With My Daughter
(While Prez. Obama is Still Our President)
As posted a few days ago on FB
©January 3rd-4th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
(Note: On our first full day (January 2nd), we’d spent a very long period of time at the National Gallery of Art, West and East Wings, plus the Sculpture Garden, as well as at the Museum of Natural History, both of which places were utterly absorbing and fascinating. I didn’t write about anything at the end of the first day, though, because I forgot to do so. The thing that stayed with me from the National Gallery of Art was the transcendental, translucent painting of the Last Supper by Salvador Dali. S and I stood there for a while, transfixed, spellbound. The thing that made S happy at the Museum of Natural History was, of course, the Dinosaur section, though S enjoyed all of it. Oh, and it drizzled on and off all day, but we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly, despite the weather.)
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Tuesday, January 3rd, 2017, our second full day in D.C.:
We had a damp, but fun day today (our second full day in DC.). LOTS of walking. My daughter is an uncomplaining trooper! So proud of her!
We took the S2 bus into D.C. from the place where we’re staying. Oh, and we saw the White House first thing this morning (upon reaching Lafayette Place), albeit from a short distance. Alas, we hadn’t booked a tour, because one has to do it six months in advance, acc. to the nice young police cop.
Then, we walked from Lafayette Place to the Museum of Natural History, where we spent a LOT of time today (because it’s S’s favourite). It’s an amazing place. And we saw the much-celebrated Hope Diamond, mostly out of a sense of duty. Once there, though, we were captured by it, and everything else in the gemology and rock section. S was delighted by the Dino section, of course. Plenty of beautiful, and sometimes sad, things to see there. The stuffed African elephant killed in 1955 by some hunter made me angry.
Some frustration before we finally got the Hop-on Hop-off DC Trails bus, (which I’d booked the night before), because my phone had died. A kindly woman allowed me to charge it up by allowing me to use her computer in the cafe at the east wing of the National Gallery of Art (where S and I ended up for forty minutes to take a much needed rest, with coffee for me and chocolate croissant for her).
After charging my phone, we tried to find the tour bus, while we walked up and down Constitution Ave, plus parts of Pennsylvania Ave., getting thoroughly confused.
I’m amazed at how my sense of direction (normally very good) vanished so completely. And I got rid of Google Maps, because it didn’t help. Plus, it drained my mobile. Anyway, I felt rather stupid.
It was great once I finally stopped going around in circles, and located the stop to board that danged bus. The tour bus itself is comfortable, and our guide was good. We passed various landmarks and got some good history on them.
Got off at Jefferson, spent a quiet time there. It’s a powerful and peaceful place to be. We loved it. I think it’s always been one of my special favorites. S loved it too. We talked about how Jefferson lived books, and she asked me, “Mom, do you think I’m a nerd?”
I considered her question, and answered, “Yes. We both are.”
She said, “Do you think I need some accessories to be a nerd?”
“Like glasses?”
“Yes,” she answered eagerly.
“No,” was my firm reply, “Thank your stars you have good vision. There’ll be plenty of time for glasses in your middle age.”
She pouted good-naturedly.
(She really, really wants to wear glasses. I love my tween!)
We saw various buildings from the outside, incl. the Washington Monument. No time to go up, alas!
There is so much to explore here, and any one museum takes hours!
Tomorrow, the Washington Zoo awaits (S is very keen and excited to go). Then, the Hop-on Hop-off DC Trails bus. Hoping to catch three or four monuments incl. Lincoln, FDR and the Vietnam Memorial, plus the American History Museum. Also, I really want to go to the Hirschhorn, which I used to haunt back in my time as a chaperone on school trips to D.C.
I might also perhaps try the Holocaust Museum lower level, if we can get in. Not sure if we can do all of this, but am going to give it a go!
Ambitious? You bet!
If I get to half what I want S to be able to see tomorrow, though, I’ll be content.
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Wednesday, January 4th, 2017 – our last full day in D.C.:
What a day!
First the Smithsonian Washington Zoo at 9:14 a.m. My delightful and gracious sister-in-law had introduced us a couple of days ago to the convenience of Uber (which I’d hitherto avoided), and we availed of this to get to the Zoo. And it was a damp, drizzly morning with only die-hard animal-lovers like us up and about there. S was in seventh heaven. We loved the pandas, of course (four of them, one of whom is the one year old Bei-Bei) and adored the elephants – named Suvarna, Maharani, and Kamala. They were sweet attentive and wonderful. We got their back-stories (Suvarna and Kamala, friends, not sisters, had both been orphaned at 1.5 years of age, then wound up in Calgary, Canada. Kamala had her baby, Maharani, who now is a bit of a spoiled, pushy youngling at 21 or 22 years of age, compared with the lofty 41 years that her mother and “aunty” share).
I sang to the elephants (my mother’s favorite song, “Kurai Ondrum Illai”), and they came close to listen!
Then, there were all the other marvelous animals –the wolves, the oryxes, the gazelles, the cranes, the flamingoes, the caracal, various smaller mammals, great apes (my favorites), beautiful sand cats and fennec foxes and more. We were at the zoo for almost four hours.
Finally, we tore ourselves away, and by means of our local Uber-Hermes, winged our way to the place where we’d take our tour bus. We wound up at the Air and Space Museum, where we spent a goodly period of time, and took off in a flight simulator whose destination was the outer edge of a local black hole. We saw supernovae and almost got sucked into the black hole, but made off just before that. We needed to get back to earth quickly, and a convenient worm hole showed up. We swept through it à la something that resembled the opening credits of Doctor Who, and then, Earth swam into view – except that it was an Earth several centuries in the future. We were stopped by the local flying police cars, and then, the simulator ended our ride. Mucho fun!
We took the tour bus again, and this time ended up at the American History Museum. We saw just a few sections of it, but it was all good stuff, including transportation and the history of electricity here. We also saw the original Star Spangled Banner. COOL!
My phone had, of course, predictably died a few times today, but each time I was prepared with my charger, and managed to juice it just enough to either get the Hop On Hop Off Bus, or an Uber. We went back to where we were staying, had supper and then got back into D.C. proper. We were all set to catch our Night-Sights, via the Hop-On, Hop-Off DC Trails Night Tour bus, on which I had secured seats for the Night Tour
We waited at the rendezvous point at the second stop where they said they could pick us up at 7:10 p.m. It was COLD by now, and we were reasonably dressed for D.C., but not for the bitter wind that swept around in eddies like an avenging god, and decided to adopt us as its pet victims, biting and vindictive in its affections.
The bus did not show up. I waited, then telephoned them. Despite my calling them every ten minutes, and getting assurances that the bus was “on its way,” and “almost there,” the bus never materialized at 15th and New York. By now, it was 7:38 p.m. Then, the dispatcher told me to go get the bus at 15th and Pennsylvania. So, our teeth chattering with cold, we half-ran, half-walked to that place.
And the bus wasn’t there!
Did I mention that I have a Stoic for a daughter? Not a word of complaint about how tired she was (We’d already walked five or six miles by that point in the day). No moaning and groaning. No grumpiness. She’s an example to us all.
(And did I mention that my phone gave out AGAIN? Too many damned APPS! I turned with relief to my daughter’s phone, which she’s careful to keep turned off and charged for just such situations. I raise a toast to my good child!)
Using her phone, I waxed wroth, gave the dispatcher a mild earful, and said I would like my money back. He said, in a faint voice, that I should call tomorrow morning about that.
I turned to S, and said, “Let’s forget about the Night Bus Tour, and let’s do it on foot!”
My tween-trooper said, “Yes, Mom!” in cheerful agreement, clearly relieved that my half hour of mild distress followed by five minutes of ire at the DC Trails Bus-folk had magically transformed into a giddy determination to DO this thing ourselves.
So, we walked all the way from Pennsylvania Ave and 15th Street (passing the Washington Monument) all the way down the Washington Mall towards Lincoln Memorial. We paused to photograph ourselves sitting on Einstein’s lovely, wrinkly, bronze statue, and rubbed him affectionately on the nose.
Then we walked and walked till we reached the majestic Lincoln Memorial. It was quite beautiful and brightly lit, and there were clearly determined people like ourselves out there.
A crescent moon hung like a silver fingernail in the sky and added mystery to the setting. Bright white lights glittered along the way and were reflected like hard diamonds in tremulous water in the Tidal Basin. We were happy, although our feet felt broken.
Then, we went down, and found ourselves at the Vietnam Memorial. It is, as many might remember, a sobering and moving and beautiful Memorial. Even into the dark, it held us in thrall. We shone a light on the names as we went past. I told her about how Maya Lin’s simple, but arresting, design for the wall had won the public design competition for the Memorial, and that she was just a young woman in her early twenties.
In silence, we looked at the names marching past us.
S wanted to know more about the war.
I told her a little bit about the Vietnam War, and added that for so many American victims , there must have many more Vietnamese ones.
She asked, “Who won?”
When I answered, “No one,” she grew thoughtful, and we were both silent.
The Nurses’ Memorial after that is one of my favorite set of statues – always affects me deeply. We walked around it, marveling at the pathos, the suffering and the courage clearly portrayed there.
We walked along the Tidal Basin in the dark, along the lit path. There were scores of ducks holding a solemn conclave in the water and discussing philosophical matters, and we didn’t intrude.
Oddly, we felt quite safe, until I realized that we were two females walking along a path in the dark, and decided abruptly to get into the sidewalk along Constitution Ave. I have to say, it really is safe there at night, or so it seems! Perhaps, we were just lucky.
So, we saw quite a lot this evening. We were satisfied. It was time to go home – but how?
Well, we walked and walked and walked – almost all the way back the way we’d come. Poor S! By now, she was lurching. I cursed myself for being a hard, heartless mother, making my child walk so far all day. I kept apologizing to her, but she reassured me she loved it, but was just very tired.
It was now 9:11 p.m. Not a cafe in sight! We turned down Constitution Ave into 17th Street. We kept up our spirits, and I promised S that I’d find a cafe to plug my phone in and call an Uber. Alas, not one single cafe was to be found.
Then, praise be! A McDonald’s loomed into view along our right!
And turning to S (who knows my rather disapproving attitude to McDonald’s), I said: “I never thought I’d ever say that I’m happy to see a McDonald’s, of all things, but I’m SO happy to see one!”
She laughed. So did I.
With relief, we lurched in, asked for an outlet, were directed to one close to the ceiling – an odd place to have it! A courteous young African-American man helped me plug it in, and within minutes, I had enough power in it to turn it on, call an Uber, and have it arrive in two minutes!
Clutching our lemonades, S and I tumbled with gratitude into the car, and reached home by a minute before 10:00. Our lovely hosts had hot chocolate with vanilla and cinnamon waiting for us, and cookies and brownies, as well.
We were grateful for a life where we *could* have such things at the end of a beautiful, long, exhausting, varied, magical, occasionally frustrating, and wonderfully satisfying and adventurous day.
S tumbled into sleep after a shower and a leg-foot massage by her doting and somewhat guilt-ridden, Mom. Said Mom is now here, sitting in a comfortable chair in the beautiful home of our kind relatives-in-law, revisiting her long day, and feeling oddly pleased with how a setback turned into an adventure.
Thanks for reading!
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Tags: #mother-daughter-trip-to-Washington-D.C.., #Ramblings, A Tourist in the Nation's Capital, Symbolic Visit