A Tour of Duty

I'd very much like to regale you with my internship experiences within the office, but I fear that to do so would breach too many confidentiality and secrecy laws to be even worth thinking about. As an example, part of the office routine is giving tours of the building to constituents who visit Washington from Florida. Today some such constituents brought along a box of expensive looking chocolates as a thank-you gift, but had to return with them as the House ethics rules prevented us from taking them lest it be seen as giving them a tour in return for a 'favour'. Ridiculous of course, but what can you do other than cry as some fine chocolates return from whence they came.

So instead of filling you in on the (admittedly little) that has happened so far, I'll restrict myself to something of a pictorial review of Washington. After the frolics of Independence Day, Saturday turned into something of a lesser event. I had much shopping to be done while some of the others went to some of the museums and galleries that are two-a-penny in Washington. On Saturday evening we went to an interesting house party for the son of the ESU guy in Washington in a nice house about three miles from here. We got a taxi there, but I decided to walk back home through the leafy suburb and then through the district of Georgetown and back to our apartment. It turned out to be a good call. The evening was balmy and the walk was really nice. Georgetown really is a lovely area of town, much more European in feel, no big shopping malls or department stalls so it's a shame that it's not really near here, nor on the way to anywhere, but I should imagine that I'll get back there before long.

On Sunday morning, Yoosun, Cecily and I headed off to walk around some of the more famous monuments around here. We started off with the Vietnam War Memorial, a very powerful, yet very simple memorial consisting merely of a sunken black marble wall with the names of all the US fatalities carved into it. After that, we strolled through the park to the Lincoln Memorial looking out towards the Washington Monument and beyond to Capitol Hill.



There's something about the Lincoln Memorial. I'll probably always associate it with that Simpsons episode where he talks to Lisa Simpson, but beyond the magnificence of the sculpture, it is a powerful place, all the more so at night. It's disappointing that once you go inside, almost all of the visitors stick to the sculpture of the man himself, and ignore the carvings of his Gettysburg Address and second inaugural speech entirely - there's a wisdom in those words that only serves to enhance the man and what he did, and it's a shame that they seem to be ignored by many.

From Lincoln we came to the Korean War Memorial, which is strangely haunting compared to the sombre neutrality of the Vietnam Memorial.



It's a memorial that I feel slightly uncomfortable taking photos of - although not to the extent that I wouldn't, like at the Vietnam one - the bleakness of the scene, of soldiers marching through a mine infested swamp land, is one that it's too easy to forget is actually based on reality. Perhaps more so than most commemorative monuments, this one really, in my opinion, makes clear the horrors that it represents.

Onwards took us through the more uplifting, and unique, memorial to Franklin Roosevelt. Commissioned by President Clinton, the FDR Memorial is more a walk-through celebration of him as President consisting of a walk through a stone bounded passage with various scenes and quotes from his time as President, and to that extent, it's unlike any other similar memorial I know of.


Walking on from there takes you around the tidal basin of the Potomac River, and around to the Jefferson Memorial - more traditional in form, but still impressive.



Like Lincoln, Jefferson is bounded by quotations from speeches of his, and again, like Lincoln, they often seem ignored by those visiting. Which is odd, because Jefferson and Lincoln were partly the people they were just because of what they said - one doesn't really make sense without the other. Finally we walked back towards the Washington Monument and the World War Two Memorial, a more grandiose walk-through construction.


After a much needed rest and heat stop we caught the Metro over to Arlington National Cemetery. Arlington, set over 600 acres of hillside on the outskirts of Washington near the Pentagon is a powerful place, containing the graves of hundreds of thousands of US soldiers killed in action, and of other prominent figures, including astronauts and Presidents. It's sheer size is what makes it almost impossible to comprehend.



And the slightly disconcerting thing is that I want to say it's a nice place. The green rolling hills make it a lovely place to stroll around, and were it not for the heat, we probably would have done so for longer, but you're constantly aware of just what it is you're walking around within. I suppose in a way that that is Arlington's success, it is more than just a cemetery, it's a place people can just go and walk around to appreciate it for itself.

Perhaps that's what I like so much about Washington. I'm not usually that keen on huge monuments to history, but in Washington's case, I really think the way it's been done, planned and laid out actually works well. They've all become part of the landscape rather than sitting awkwardly on top of what's already there. Of course, it helps that Washington is a 'new' city to accommodate everything, but more than anything, they made for a lovely day's walking, which can't often be said of walking within a city. Washington really is my kind of town.