(Washington, District of Columbia, U.S.A.)

From the capital of the ancient Roman Empire…to the capital of the modern American Empire!

Many other commentators have drawn analogies between ancient Rome and modern America, so I won’t rehash them here.  However, it is fascinating to see so many glorious monuments to America and wonder if they will suffer the same fate as the glorious monuments of Rome.

I started my tour with a visit to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.  The Smithsonian is not just one museum…it is a collection of many huge museums that cannot possibly be seen in one trip to Washington.  I chose this one to start, as I thought it would be interesting to see how Americans see themselves and what they consider to be important in their history.

There were extensive displays on food, transportation, the Civil War, and the office of the President, to name a few.   Having just watched a movie called “The Butler” that incorporated a number of key civil rights events, it was fascinating to see a Woolworths lunch counter from Greensboro, N.C.  In the early 1960s, this counter (and others like it throughout the South) was the location of nasty confrontations between civil rights advocates and segregationists.  Taken out of that context, the lunch counter looks very mundane but it also illustrates how pervasive segregation really was.

Moving forward a few years, a single display included Muhammad Ali’s boxing gloves, Bob Dylan’s leather jacket and Archie Bunker’s chair!

With the thermometer pushing 20’C, I spent the rest of the afternoon outside.  I saw the White House and took the top photo but it was (understandably) difficult to get too close.  Similarly, the towering Washington Monument was understandably closed as the damage from the 2011 earthquake has not yet been completely repaired.  It should be open again later this year.  I really wasn’t expecting an earthquake to impact my DC sightseeing.

I was able to get very close to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.  At first glance, it is underwhelming…a black marble V cut into a small slope.  However, its power derives from the fact that every single American fatality in Vietnam is listed on the monument.  It is relentless.  Seeing the individual names reinforces the sheer scale of the conflict and personalizes the losses in a way that mere numbers cannot.

Finally, I stopped by the Lincoln Memorial.  It is a much more traditional monument and it is very popular with visitors.  It was also the site of Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech; the speech location is clearly marked on the monument steps.

After dinner at a Pakistani restaurant in the unusually-named neighbourhood of Foggy Bottom, I returned to my hotel and updated my plans for the next couple of days.  I’ve just received some very good news about Thursday and need to adjust my schedule as a result.