Adventures in DC - Day 2

Originally published as an email to friends just a couple of weeks before 9/11, we continue with...

Monday - Day 2 of my Adventure in Washington D. C.

The next morning, Monday, my poor darling had to go to work. But I didn’t! So, Julio (a very sweet man from El Salvador) chauffeured me to the Metro station (You'll remember from the last post that this is one of the three places available to be chauffeured to), where I was very pleased to discover that an all-day-anywhere-you-want-to-go ticket is only $5!

Wow! What a bargain, thanks to all of us taxpayers. Thank you, all of you taxpayers. The Metro is just like San Francisco Bay Area’s BART, only you can get anywhere from everywhere, and the trains seem to run on time. [Note:  The all-day, one-day ticket is now $9. Still a bargain.]

Today, I decided to go to the American History Museum to see Old Glory and the First Ladies exhibit. Those women are/were TINY, and such lovely clothing and china and silver. It really was fun to see that and to imagine being elegantly entertained at the White House or floating gracefully about at an Inaugural Ball in a designer gown. Sigh. [Note:  And even more fun now, with several more First Ladies' things to exhibit!] 

So, I’m walking through the early machinery exhibit, and a gentleman dressed like an Amish person rushes past me. Then another. I thought to myself, “Cool! They’re going to have some kind of living history demonstration or something!” And I almost stopped the second man to ask where the demonstration was going to take place. I am a sucker for living history demonstrations. How exciting! Just then, a younger “Amish” man almost knocked me over in his hurry to get through there. And then, a group of “Amish” ladies of various ages went breezing by, too. And I heard them speaking. And, boy, am I ever glad I didn’t open my big mouth…they were real! How embarrassing would that have been? Not nearly as embarrassing as what happened to me at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington, but more on that later. [Note:  You won't want to miss the gorey details of this misadventure in the next blog posting. I have a talent for this sort of thing.]

I also went to the Holocaust museum on Monday. Devastating. And so very well done. Unfortunately, the museums close very early (5 p.m.), so I was not able to see it all. But it’s really worth going to. [Note:  Ten years later, I am still impacted by my visit to this museum. There's a pile of shoes there, and those shoes belonged to people whose stories were ended abruptly, violently. It's strange the things that stay with you.]

Harry had to work until midnight, so we ate a gourmet meal at Denny’s. Yum.