(August 22nd 2006)

Tampa was fun, but the weather reminded me too much of Calcutta. Factor in all the old people, with the massive All-American cars, driving in the fast lane, 20 under & yeah, you have a match made in heaven. Of all the people I spoke to, nobody was “from” Florida. Everyone had moved there. I guess that is a lot like Bombay. One of the few people I know who is “from” Bombay is Ashu and the band of Jukars.

On Friday I headed off to Washington DC from Tampa. I spent the weekend in DC rather than fly back home since it did not make sense to do a Florida-California-Washington DC flight, plus I was going to be in DC for a shorter time than usual.

Jai, our friend who had been living at our place (doing his summer internship at Apple) over the last 3 months, reached DC on the same day. His wife works for the World Bank in DC and he has 2 weeks before he returns to Boston to finish the second of his MBA. Jai and his wife met after quite a few days and their priority was to bang each other than hang out with me… yeah, go figure.

So, on Saturday, I woke up early, got myself a huge breakfast and headed out to walk around the city. I did not take my camera with me, so all these pictures are from my cell phone. I picked up a map of DC and started walking. Now, I have been to DC a few times before, but it has always been on a business trip and never had time to get to know the city. There is nothing like walking in the city to become one with it. My hotel was on 22^nd and M Street. DC has most of it’s streets going East-West or North-South. I walked down to the Vietnam War Memorial. This short walkway has granite walls with names on sorted by year. I spent a few moments thinking of all the lives lost by 19 year olds, and what could have been. War is not a solution, how can it be? Death, destruction, misery, hate and the pain of losing someone. Does that sound like a road to peace? Wars are glorified in movies and all soldiers are heroes right? Sure, but ask any military man and they will tell you the exact opposite of what pudgy, smug and smarmy politicos extol.

After my mixed feelings at the Vietnam War Memorial, I headed towards Lincoln Memorial, which is much bigger than one would think. I stood there for a while and watched people and their reactions. It was very interesting. Then I walked by the Reflecting Pool towards the World War II Memorial. Very pretty compared to what that war signified. I spent a few minutes there and then headed off towards the Washington Memorial.

The Washington Memorial, an impressive obelisk, that towers over the city named after the General. This monument was built by an architect called Mills and it took him almost 40 years to get it completed starting in the mid 1840s. You can see when the construction was stopped for a while in the 1860’s and restarted in the 1870’s. They used a different stone, so there is pronounced color change. At 555 feet, it’s an interesting sight. I was too late for the tour, but it sat in it’s shade while I called Pia and Vicky. I spoke to them for a while and when I felt refreshed, I walked over to the Smithsonian museums.

The Smithsonian museums are about 10 blocks away and if I’m not mistaken there are more than 15 of them. I visited as many as I could. If I go to a museum I cannot just breeze through it. I feel compelled to sit and examine everything in detail and muse it’s inclusion. Yes, so I’m a little anal. At least I know a lot of random facts that will take me nowhere.

I started at the main Smithsonian “Castle”, which was blissfully air-conditioned. It was a blazing 95 or more outside. I’m from India, but I hate the heat. I care about global warming as soon as I have Freon pumping through my compressor, belching out refrigerated air. So again, I sat for about 10 minutes and planned my walk for the next few hours. Next door was the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Park. There were some very impressive paintings by a German artist besides the usual medley of renaissance impressionists. There were some very modern sculptures and art exhibits too. I left quite pleased after time well spent.

From the Hirshhorn, I headed over the National Space and Air Museum, the highlight of my day. I walked in and was greeted by Spaceship One, the Paul Allen project. Plus an assortment of biplanes, reentry modules, missiles and other military/aviation memorabilia. Slowly, I made my way though all the exhibits, spending time to absorb how much money was spent in creating all these steel machines to take us higher, faster and further than ever before.

I walked through the museum in chronologically, yes, my anal-osity kicked in, in full gear. Started at the beginning of flight, with the Orville and Wilbur Wright, moved on to World War I, then to World War II, where they had the Messerschmitt and the famous Mitsubishi “Zeros” that struck dread in the hearts of the Allied soldiers.

There was a whole section on modern aviation, which my father would have loved. Every kind of engine was compared including turboprops, ram jets, turbojets and the placement of these engines on the body of the aircraft. The detailed research and comparison was quite interesting. Well, to someone who cares.

I strolled further towards the space age and had a look at all the missions that NASA has flown to space. I had no idea that there were so many. There was lots of gear from the shuttles as well as the “Moon Buggy”. One thing I did notice is that the “Moon Buggy” did not have the traditional air filled wheels, for obvious reasons.

The last section was when I was starting to get tired of all the people, I moved on towards the US Capitol. Another classic American structure. Who hasn’t seen this building in some movie or TV show? I just spent a few minutes staring at all the over paranoid barricades and decided that I like museums instead.

It was close to 6pm at this point… so I headed over to my hotel, since the White House was en-route, I took a minor detour and checked it out from the outside. All tours of the White House have been stopped indefinitely. We all know why. There were lots of protesters out there and I wasn’t in the least bit surprised. There were tons of people trying to get a glimpse of the structure and I was asked to take pictures of many people, which I did dutifully. Soon enough I was bored and headed back to hotel. I picked up a few drinks from the complimentary bar and headed to my room. Madhur & Jai joined me after a while and we had a few drinks, then headed over to Georgetown to a nice Indian restaurant. The restaurant was kind of ho-hum, but on the way back, I saw the mythical beast. Yes kids, I saw…. The Mongolian Embassy. Yes! I was like a little kid on crack. That just made my day. Madhur & Jai smiled at me like they would, to a “special” child.

The next day was Sunday and I had decided to check out the rest of the Smithsonians. I was up by about 8am, worked out, got myself a heavy breakfast, picked up my MP3 player, shades, hat, sandals and headed off towards the “Mall”.

I saw the American History Museum. Now, this is something that most people laugh about. I have heard people say that “American History” is an oxymoron. So, why must everything be quantitative? How about qualitative? The museum had the flag that was draped over the Pentagon after the 9/11 attack. Plus there was a lot of history about American Presidents. I also saw the “original” Star Spangled Banner and saw a short documentary about their national anthem. Quite interesting. There was a whole section dedicated to technology and the evolution of computers. There was even a big section on green house gasses and other factors that cause global warming. In fact there was a small section on American music like the Blues, Honky Tonk, Bluegrass and of course Country. I even saw a small section on pop culture and the little things one remembers from our childhood that are indelibly American. Like the Muppets, Sesame Street, Wizard of Oz, Fonzi’s leather jacket, Bruce Springsteen’s blue jeans from his Born in the USA album. This whole country is a country of immigrants and has forged a place in history over the last 300 odd years. So you don’t like the politicos, well, that is something you need to look beyond. So many people can’t be bad, can they? But of course you are entitled to your opinion as long as I agree with it.

Then I walked off to the Museum of Natural History. I had saved the best for last. I had heard so much about this place and seen it in so many movies. Now, I have been to natural history museums in many countries, France, UK, Canada etc, but the Smithsonian is a huge piece of history.

I slowly wound my way from prehistoric to minerals slowly. I lots of minerals from India. I was amazed with all the information available and sometimes I was overloaded with it. I took time to walk and sit while observing people at the same time. I was very impressed with the exhibits and the information. My feet were done for the evening, so I decided to walk back to my hotel. I was walking quite slowly and again decided to check out the White House from a different direction. As I sat there waiting for my feet to get some rest, an Indian couple with their son walked up to me and asked me if I would take a picture of theirs. I said sure and squeezed off a couple of shots. They were really happy and started taking to me. They told me that they were visiting the US for the first time and that their son was doing his PhD in Wisconsin someplace. I smiled politely and made a few noncommittal comments. They asked me about my life and what I did. They were thrilled to bits that they met another Indian. Obviously, they’ve never been to San Francisco and the bay area.

As I walked back to my hotel, Jai called me and told me that they would be dropping by around 7pm, so I took a shower, shaved and then picked up some drinks from the bar in the lobby. Jai and I had a few drinks and then we headed off to Madhur’s apartment. We chatted for a bit and had dinner. It is always nice to catch up with old friends. There are no pretenses and it’s a very comfortable feeling. Our conversations cover a huge range, from politics, to the current state of the economy, to technology, to his education, to my baby, our wives, our hopes, our dreams and daily annoyances.

Yes, I’d say that my DC trip was a lot of fun. I met up with Madhur & Jai everyday and was happy to have someone to speak to outside of work. Would I want to live in DC? No, I don’t think so. But I’d go there to visit the two of them and the city of DC, to show Eve about her mom’s country.

# posted by carrotcurries.com @ 2:38:00 PM