Segway Tours of Washington, DC

So, I'm hanging out downtown on Sunday when this family rides by on a Segway tour of DC. You remember the Segway. That's the thing George W. fell off of a while back. In case you missed it, you can see the photos here. Man I wish that was a video.

The first thing I thought when I saw these people was - my god that's dorky. The second thing I thought was - they look like they are having the time of their lives. Of course now their picture is up on the internet for the whole world to see. You can't do anything these days without your stupidness getting posted.

National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC

Who would have thought the National Portrait Gallery would turn out to be such a great museum. The presidential portraits are a snooze, but the changing exhibits at the gallery are really interesting.

I went by on Sunday to catch another glimpse of "RECOGNIZE! Hip Hop and Contemporary Portraiture." Mainly I just wanted to see the Kehinde Wiley portraits. He should definitely do Barack's presidential portrait. The presidential portrait exhibit needs some color (in more ways than one).

There is also a surprisingly good exhibit of Ansel Adams and Georgia O'Keefe. I don't know why I wasn't expecting much, perhaps because the last O'Keefe exhibit I saw in Portland, Maine didn't have much going on. The Portrait Gallery had some truly exceptional paintings. O'Keefe captured the essence of things.

The "Women of Our Time: Twentieth-Century Photographs" had some interesting choices. My personal favorite, in the little known women category, was Jeannette Rankin. She was the first woman elected to congress (1916). What's even more amazing is that she was a pacifist and still got elected. Granted her career backslid when she voted not to enter World War I and it was destroyed when she was the only congressperson to vote not to enter World War II. You have to admire someone who sticks to their ethics no matter what it costs them.

Those were some of the highlights this time around. This is a definite must stop if you are visiting DC.

Review of Amsterdam Falafelshop

Chris and I had been hearing raves about the Amsterdam Falafelshop in Adams Morgan. It isn't often you can get good, cheap eats in DC. Being on a post-London budget, we needed to save some cash.

The restaurant is a tiny hole in the wall right in the heart of everything. I somehow managed to keep bumping into everyone else in there. They only do four things: falafel, french fries, brownies, and beverages.

It was probably the best falafel I have ever had. It was light and perfectly seasoned. The pita bread was soft and thick. They have a bar full of condiments, including some cumin-spiced onions that were amazing.

The fries weren't bad either, although they were overkill after the huge falafels. We didn't try the brownies. We later thought we might have erred in not eating brownies at someplace called the Amsterdam Falafelshop. Our whole meal - two falafels, fries, a soda and a guava nectar - cost less than $20. That's a miracle in DC.

One warning though, I was grepsing falafel for several hours after our meal. Bring some mints. And you might want to skip it on a date.

Amsterdam Falafelshop, 2425 18th Street NW, Washington, DC

The Tidal Basin in Washington, DC

This is the tidal basin during last spring's cherry blossom bloom. Cherry blossom time gets busy around the basin, but normally it is one of the more peaceful spots in DC.

On the left is, I believe, where the new Martin Luther King Jr. memorial will be. They are supposed to break ground next month.

The picture is taken from the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial. Eleanor is also memorialized, although she doesn't get the billing she should.

Just around the other side of the basin is the Jefferson Memorial. So someday soon you will be able to walk through the moral journey of the United States by taking a stroll around the Tidal Basin.

Jefferson, who struggled with the immorality of slavery, although he owned slaves his whole life, begins the journey. Next comes Franklin D. Roosevelt, who championed the rights of African-Americans, Jews, Catholics and Native Americans, but whose record was marred by the internment of Japanese and Germans in World War II. Eleanor was even more progressive than FDR. She was also instrumental in the writing and adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Finally, there will be Martin Luther King, Jr. What can you say about MLK? Faced with terrible violence and constant degradation, he led a movement of inspirational peace that changed the world. Even in my recent trip to London, the inspirational poster in the subway was Martin Luther King. I doubt there is a corner of the globe he hasn't inspired in some way.

The route from Jefferson to Roosevelt to King will be covered in cherry trees. The first trees were a gesture of friendship from the Tokyo mayor in 1912. This friendship was short lived, as Pearl Harbor was just 29 years later.

Yet by 1965, just 24 years after Pearl Harbor and 20 years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 3,800 more trees were given as a gift from Japan. It's incredible when you think about it. In the Middle East people are still holding grudges from the Crusades. Meanwhile the United States and Japan rebuilt their relationship in less than twenty years.

Thomas Jefferson Memorial in Washington, DC

The Jefferson Memorial is beautiful. I prefer the view from across the tidal basin though. When I'm actually in the monument, looking at the quotes, I have mixed emotions to say the least.

If nothing else, Jefferson was a poster child for how opposing thoughts, emotions, and deeds can reside in one person. He wrote against slavery, but had slaves. He was constantly referring to god, but wanted a strict separation of church and state. He was a moralizer, but had a lifetime affair and several unacknowledged children with his slave (and wife's half sister) Sally Hemings.

Korean War Memorial in Washington, Dc

The Korean war memorial is trippy. Life-sized soldiers slog through foliage in their rain gear. Their gray faces are pained and grim. It is a huge display, maybe twenty soldiers. There is also a wall with sandblasted portraits. It is particularly spooky as the sun is going down.

The memorial captures the drudgery of war, if not the carnage or the politics. How are we supposed to avoid more wars if we only remember the sacrifice of the soldiers and not the stupidity of the politicians?

Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial

The Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial is by far my favorite in DC. It's huge and broken down into areas by his presidential terms. I believe these men are supposed to be on a soup line. If things keep going the way they have been, we'll be seeing a lot more of these.

The memorial is particularly gorgeous during spring when the cherry blossoms are out, but any time is good for a chill walk along the tidal basin. Perhaps if we all spend some time there reading his and Eleanor's quotes some of their inspiration will rub off on us. We could use it.

Review of Open City

Open City was, for a time, our most favored breakfast place. It is just up the road in Woodley Park. The prices are reasonable by DC standards. The coffee is good. The food is good. They have outdoor seating.

On the down side, the service can be atrocious. The last time we went, the hostess was like a lobotomized coke head - running around, but not getting anything accomplished. She ticked us off so badly we haven't been back.

That's a shame, because their chai waffle is quite delicious. Chris is a bit fan of the chorizo scramble. My advice is, go to Open City, but only if you have a healthy dose of zen-like patience.

Open City, 2331 Calvert Street NW, Washington, DC 20008

Coffee Woes of the Traveler

Why is it so difficult to get a good cup of coffee when you are traveling? In Mexico, a place where they grow coffee, they would plop down a jar of instant Nescafe on the table and call it a day. It wasn't until we got to Mexico City and found Starbucks that we were able to get a decent cup.

In London, the coffee isn't bad, but the milk products are all awful. The milk tastes weird. Even the soy milk tastes weird. What's worse, nobody has half and half (or half cream, or whatever they want to call it). Note the tubs of "milk" that were sitting on the counter in our hotel room.

Castles and Crazies in Oxford, England

So I'm walking down the street in Oxford, just by the castle, and I spot this guy on a hill with his hands stretched out. At first I thought there was somebody else up there with him and he was posing for a picture. But no.

Turns out he was just a little crazy. I didn't break the camera out in time to catch the arms spread eagle moments, but I did catch him running down the hill with his hands covering his ears. You can just barely see him up by the tree in the top right of the photo.

Crazy people are fun.

Finally Some Personality on Cowley Road in Oxford

Cowley Road is one of the cooler parts of Oxford. Come to think of it, I liked it better than most of London too. It has dozens of little restaurants, lots of funky murals, and a very cool looking mosque.

Like a lot of neighborhoods where immigrants and students have converged, it has a really good vibe. Halal meat markets and food cooperatives can be found there. As can funky clothing, bicycles, and (of course) an Oxfam shop.

If I ever had to live in Oxford, this is where you'd find me.

Getting to and Around Oxford, England

Downtown Oxford is full of bicycles. This is undoubtedly due in large part to the exorbitant parking fees, nearly $40 a day. I saw quite a few old professor types huffing and puffing along on their way (presumably) to work.

Although the downtown area has fairly limited traffic, the areas and suburbs just outside of downtown Oxford can get surprisingly congested. This is particularly dangerous for those of us unused to people driving on the left side of the road. Even though practically every street had painted on it which way you should look to cross, I always looked the wrong way.

There's a pretty extensive bus system in Oxford, but it costs a lot. I paid nearly $4 to go a distance that would have taken me about 15 or 20 minutes to walk. It made me miss the good old Mexico City bargain transportation system. Taxis are also expensive. A ten minute ride was about $20. Although, the taxis in England are way better than ours. They are a modernized version of the old taxi cabs with fold down rear facing seats. Quite nice.

The final method of getting in and out of Oxford is the train, which is packed on weekdays. Lots of people commute into London. It is very quiet and orderly, although not always on time. It's also incredibly expensive. My train to the airport cost almost $70. That would be about $700 a week in commuting costs. Ouch. Hope they have some sort of commuter pass.

Rollerblading in the London Silence

Hyde Park has a section where people rollerblade. Central Park in New York also has a section where people rollerblade, but there is a crucial difference. The people in New York are jammin. The music is blasting and the rollerbladers are dancing.

There's no music in London. It's weird. The entire time I was in London and Oxford, I don't recall a single store with music blaring out. I came across one vehicle in Oxford that was politely blaring the car stereo (just loud enough for it to seep out the car windows).

Coming from Miami, where everything is done to a soundtrack of blasting stereos, it seems bizarre to me. Life without music just isn't life.

Following Orders Under Big Brother's Watchful London Eyes

If you are going to visit London, get used to being told to "mind the gap." This is usually being told to you over a loud speaker, repetitively. It does not, that I can recall, come accompanied with a "please" or "thank you." It is most definitely an order.

The other thing to get used to in London is the feeling that you are being watched. Sometimes a sign will advise you that you are on camera and being monitored. Sometimes you just see the camera. It feels a little creepy, but I better get used to it. Washington DC is now following their lead.

Deceit at Buckingham Palace in London

Buckingham Palace is a rather homely building. The gates are topped with silly unicorns. There is tacky gold paint everywhere. Nevertheless, I was very excited about going.

Mainly I wanted to participate in the tradition of trying to make the guards flinch. I had a choreographed jig all planned out. There was no way they were going to keep a straight face.

Then I arrived and discovered that, not only were the guards far, far away from the gate - they were fake! How can they use dummy guards? I know finances are tight right now, but we're talking about the queen of England for Pete's sake. Surely she can shell out a few bucks an hour for someone to stand there. Aren't there some jewels she can sell?

Very disappointing.

Harrods Foodie Mecca in London

My second favorite thing in London (after seeing A Midsummer Nights Dream) was the food court in Harrods department store. Those are the food court fishmongers.

In addition to being a gourmet market, it also has several counters where you can order food - including a caviar counter. Chris and I ate at the deli. The matzo ball soup was just like my mothers, seriously. The lox was perfect. My turkey sandwich was great.

Of course, the whole lunch cost like $70, which is ridiculous. In fact, everything was incredibly expensive. The uncooked lobsters cost about $80 each. At those prices, Chris and I figure we ate about $400 worth of lobster on our trip to Maine. Woo Hoo.

The best were the chocolate and pastry counters. They were mobbed, but we elbowed our way in for our fix. I was in sugar heaven. We bought a strawberry tart and a big giant coffee cream filled puff (which we ate later). We also bought some apple pie, truffles, and fudge (most of which I stupidly forgot at the hotel).

If you ever go to London, do not miss gorging at Harrods. But skip the rest of the tourist filled mecca of materialism that is the rest of the department store. I could barely make it through there.

Obamamania in London

These are the turnstiles at Paddington Train Station in London. Note the photo of Barack Obama on the third turnstile from the left. Obama's photo was everywhere in London.

The Times Newspaper in London put these ads up. There were enormous photos of Obama down in the subway stations. They have no words on them. The only way I knew it was The Times was by looking it up when I got home.

Nobody is quite sure why The Times put these ads up. They say it is to make people think. Since they put a "10" next to Obama (for 10 Downing Street, the home of the Prime Minister), I'm assuming they want to think about Obama moving on to Britain once he's served his eight years here.

I heard quite a few Obama conversations as well. When people weren't talking about Obama, they were talking about the financial crisis. It was pretty much like home, except that the Brits kept saying they were going to be "sensible" - unlike us. I think being sensible is highly overrated.

London's Sci Fi Architecture

This photo really sums up London for me. To the left is the Tower Bridge. It was built in 1894 and crosses the Thames River right next to the Tower of London (circa 1078). It is, in short, the London you imagine from literature and high school history.

The kooky toppled over egg to the right is the London City Hall (circa 2002). It is like something out of Gattaca. These incongruous pairings are found all over the city. It feels a bit like Londoners are screaming out, "Look! We're modern, we're hip! It's not just Dickens and Jack the Ripper you know!"

Me thinks Londoners doth protest too much. Unlike Mexico City, where the different eras somehow work together, in London it is startling. In London's defense, I must point out that much of the city was destroyed during The Blitz and so it isn't as though they knocked down gorgeous old historic buildings to put up their (often egg shaped) futuristic experiments.

I was expecting to be transported back into a Dickens novel and ended up in a 1950s sci fi television show. Beam me up Scotty.

London's Tourist Trail

Naturally, Chris and I did all the usual touristy bits of London. The highlight was definitely seeing A Midsummer Nights Dream at the Globe Theatre. (It isn't the original Globe of Shakespeare's time, but it is an exact replica - right down to the wooden pegs holding it together.)

I was expecting the play to be a bit kitchy and touristy, but it was an incredible performance. It was funny and bawdy and kept the hundreds of kids in the audience in rapt attention for three hours. The actors were phenomenal. Anyone who gets a chance should go.

We also, of course, hit Westminster Abbey. Personally, I was a bit disappointed. It's old (about a thousand years), but nowhere near as fun as the churches in Latin America. I mean where are the decaying bodies of small children or blood-soaked effigies of Jesus? Also, they have a pattern worked out that you must use to get around the church. I saw the pattern on the brochure, but thought it was merely a suggestion. When we tried to go out through the wrong door, a very stern headmistress-like woman told us we needed to follow the route out. Londoners are very keen on rules.

Next to the Abbey is Parliament (which we only looked at from the outside) and Big Ben. We took hundreds of pictures in the area. After about an hour, Chris looked at me and said "I wonder what time it is?" I looked at him, looked at Big Ben, looked at him, pointed to Big Ben and said...."uh, you just spent an hour taking pictures of what is, arguably, the most famous clock in the world." We immediately headed to the Red Lion pub as Chris was obviously much too sober.

Space Age Accomodations in London

There is a Yotel at the London airport. A Yotel is a hotel with very small rooms that can be rented for as little as 4 hours. Unlike most hourly rate hotel rooms, these are quite respectable.

When I say the rooms are small, I mean they are small. As you can see in the pic, Chris is in a little cubby. Below him is the bed for the next room (which, of course, we could not see). In front of him on the wall is a flat screen t.v. which he is sleepily trying to work the remote for.

Next to the sleep cubby is a narrow passageway just big enough for a couple bags and for getting in and out the door. Next to that is another narrow hall that serves as the bathroom, with a shower on one end, a toilet on the other, and a sink in the middle. The whole thing is cordoned off by a shower curtain.

The lighting in the photo is the normal lighting for the hotel. The entire thing is done in soft neon. The hallways look like something out of Star Trek. You check in on a machine, but there is one staff person there to help you if you are a moron or just very, very tired travellers. I'm going to say I was in the latter category.

Since we arrived at Heathrow too early to check into our hotel, we were able to use the Yotel to catch an extra hours sleep and to take quick showers. It was a lifesaver for me and worth every penny of the $60 or so we paid for 4 hours. I think it probably helped Chris a little too, although he didn't sleep much on the flight over - or the night before - so he was a zombie by the time it hit about 7:00 p.m.

So that was the beginning of our trip to London.