I'm here in Washington, DC for 10 days. Pavey is here for the first 5, and my brother Lawrence for the last 4. Squeezed in there I've got a few days of work to do, at a trade show.
So, tourism, trade, tourism. The first few days have included The Washington Monument, The White House, The Lincoln Memorial, the Arlington Cemetery, the excellent Air and Space Museum, The US Capitol, and some very good restaurants.
Washington, DC is strangely (or not, depending on how many times you've been here) more like Paris in its tourist areas than any other US city. It's laid out intelligently and evenly, positively spacious and - at least over this past weekend - not too tangled up with traffic.
Admittedly, the buildings themselves are only 'inspired' by their European forebears, and there's an unavoidable sniff of Disney about them. I know that's horribly European of me to say that, but there are obelisks, statues, and columned monuments in every major European city, so it's unavoidable that DC's versions would be copies compared to the originals.
Nevertheless, it's good to have your picture taken 100 yards from the White House, through railings that make it appear like you're in a cell, looking out on the Presidential palace.
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