Well, I'm definitely a man of my word. Once again disturbed with the lack of.... everything.... in BV, I decided to grab some friends and trot off to Washington. Yes, again. Refrain from judging me, please. Now I've been to DC a lot of times. It's almost disgusting. So, naturally, I have become something of a tour guide to all my deprived Western friends who have yet to see our nation's capitol. And as you can tell by the length of this post, I'm a pretty big fan.
You may have seen me barreling down the 495, or doing an illegal, 30 mile an hour u-turn on Constitution Ave. In a yellow Dodge Neon. As my friend Andrew pointed out, I looked like Mr. Incredible in the little 4 lb compact.
Our adventures took us to all the usual places- the monuments, Ben's Chili Bowl, and so forth. We had a nice private, small-group tour of the Capitol by my friend's sister. We messed with some drunk dudes on the train. We stayed at a great lil Residence Inn out in Falls Church. It was all nice. However, I experienced a slight departure from the norm when I had the "privilege" of sort of stumbling upon Anacostia. Basically, I took Pennsylvania Ave Southeast instead of Northwest. I saw the bridge and my stomach dropped.
Now there's a reason that in my approximately 674 trillion trips to DC, I have never been to this particular part of town. It's the ghetto. My parents warned me, the guidebooks don't even MENTION the whole neighborhood, and all of my friends from the area speak of it as if 1 in 2 people are bludgeoned to death every day.
No one was too far off the mark. I knew I was in trouble when I saw one of those sketchy "The Government Is Giving 5.3 Scrillion Dollars To Rebuild This Neighborhood" signs. Or as I read it, "Turn Around And Flee At Once, You Clueless Sheltered Boy." Of course, there was construction. Of course there was traffic, and of course my flawless sense of navigation failed me once I saw the first 6 liquor stores and Rent A Centers. People were walking in between the stopped cars, and a preacher-ish looking man tried to show me a newspaper that I did not care to see. I like to think of myself as a "city kid," but I have to admit that my experience in Tha Hood has been pretty limited. Maybe I just need to grow a pair and learn some hood skillz. Or..... I can just stay in college and live in a good neighborhood with parks and 24 hour doormen. Yeah, I'll go with that.
I'd like to thank "Metro Man," who was 100% responsible for our little glance into urban life.
You see, in His Infinite Wisdom, he chose not to honor our completely valid day passes. I wish I could sit in a little glass hexagon (which is apparently The Prism of Indisputable Decisions) and tell people "no" all day..
So instead of taking advantage of DC's thorough and simple mass transit system, we had to drive everywhere. Like Anacostia, apparently.
Not only was Al Gore probably dry heaving at our lack of environmental awareness, but I'm pretty sure I stole a Congressional parking space. By Accident. Twice.
It's a good thing I have awesome friends who took it all quite well. They're a patient bunch. Anyone who spends time with me is.
Next time, I'll stick to the subway. And Foggy Bottom. And Georgetown. And NoVa and all of the nice lil gentrified neighborhoods that I like to think of as my second home.
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