Our Nation's Capital

D.C. is an interesting city. It took us over an hour to take the bus/Metro connection to get into the city. The Metro compared very well to the NJ Path. It was amazingly clean, smooth and quiet- quite a switch from the jerking, screeching ride of the Path. The city’s monolithic buildings make it feel a bit like Stalin’s Russia.

The Library of Congress covers 3 huge buildings. To use the resources in the Library, you first need to sign up as a researcher- a three step process – ending with a photo I.D. card and a session with a volunteer to help you understand where to find the info you need. Our first stop, at the Map Reading Library was a home-run. Their digitized collection of Sanborn Maps would cost a local library $90,000 for access. We stayed until their 5:00 closing, with a promise to return. We found a local bar on Pennsylvania Avenue, the Capitol Lounge, with $8 wines and 10 cent buffalo wings. The bar was filled with D.C. staffers – all in the same dark suits, looking like Neidermeyers from Animal House. The conversations were hysterical – lives revolving around politics.

Deciding to stay an extra week in D.C. gave us the chance to alternate days in the city and “relax” days. We decided to take a short ‘field trip’ on Wednesday to see the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception—the largest Catholic Church in the Western Hemisphere- and the 7th largest church in the world. Building started in 1920 and the Crypt Church was completed in 1926. The Depression and WWII delayed construction of the Upper Church until the 1950’s and the Church was dedicated in 1959. The upper church has a Byzantine feel with a huge blue and gold onion shaped dome and mosaics everywhere. The halls inside are lined with chapels dedicated to saints around the world….China, India, Vietnam, Slovenia, Poland. We even found a small shrine to the Malta saint, Ta Pinu.

We spent Thanksgiving with the “Indians” - the Asian Indians – as per our tradition. We found a great Indian restaurant, Sapphire, close to the campgrounds. We walked into the nearly empty restaurant and saw a buffet spanning the entire length of the dining room. We walked the length of the line, peering into the huge chafing dishes teeming with wonderful Indian curries with chicken, lamb, goat, lentils and veggies. We started with samosas and pakoras, then filled our plates with curries. After the appetizers and one plate of curries, we were stuffed.

Since we’d done the typical tour of all of the government monuments in our last visit, we decided to spend this time seeing some of the museums and exploring other neighborhoods. The American Indian Museum was under construction in our last visit. Today, it’s one of the most popular of the Smithsonian museums.