DC Wanderings and Wonderings

Even this earnest Capital City, where the grandiose, the mundane, the visitors and the forces of the law meet and commingle ...

.....has its quirky parts. Now this is just by the house where Lincoln died. Bad taste? Dunno, I didn't try one.

Blimey - they've got Boris Bikes here!

And their very own Monstrous Carbuncle.

And red buses! With Stars and Stripes on 'em. The cheek of it! Who burned the White House in the War of 1812 anyway?

Or you can travel in more style

Take note - that door could change its mind

The National Gallery of Art is getting a facelift. That doesn't detract from a stupendous collection of paintings, Impressionists, Italian Renaissance, Turner, Constable and Gainsborough, Winslow Homer and John Singer Sargeant. You name it. Those American collectors knew how to flash their money around. You can happily spend days wandering here. The paintings are beautifully hung and lit but the cafeteria is awful. After a mediocre and outrageously expensive sandwich, you have to tidy away your own tray onto a sort of moving rack which means waiting forever for a gap between other people's leftovers. I'm afraid I rebelled. If I have to pay through the nose for my lunch, I at least expect someone else to clear it away. "It's the sequester - not enough staff", I heard someone grumble.

DC Wanderings: The Emperor in Chinatown

 I stumbled on Washington's Chinatown - like many self-respecting American cities, it has one. It's not that big but there is a triumphal arch.

And some nice little old houses..

In amongst the drab, impersonal modern buildings.

 Not to mention a Chinese Starbucks...

...and a Chinese Irish pub ....

As I was walking along, I thought I heard a man shouting "Free dog and cat meat!"  Given the setting, this was a little disconcerting.  Then I came upon this lady, who was calling out,  "Free dog and cat food!"

 Which was more like it. I asked her why she was giving away free dog and cat food. "It's a promotion!" she explained with a conspiratorial grin.  And she had plenty of takers.

But the most interesting thing I found in Chinatown was an old stone Catholic church, called St Mary's.

 The board outside said it offered the Mass in Chinese, Latin and English.  The interior was quite something.

 Unlike many American churches, it had not been "wreckovated" - the high altar was still there and there was a fabulous ceiling....

....and stained glass windows.

 And, amazingly, for a church in Chinatown, there was a shrine to the last Hapsburg ruler of Austria-Hungary, Emperor Charles, (aka Karl), a saintly man, who tried to stop World War One, died in exile in 1922 and was beatified in 2004 by Pope John Paul ll. So now he's Blessed Charles. There was a book where people could write their prayer requests.

 They even had the old Austro-Hungarian flag with the double-headed eagle.  St Mary's was originally built in the nineteenth century as a church for German immigrants but I doubt that would explain it. The Emperor's presence in Chinatown must remain a mystery unless someone can enlighten me.

It's extraordinary what you can find when you're wandering around a city.

Washington Will Be Continued

  or "DC" as you have to call it here. There may be a short blogging hiatus as I rush around for a couple of days  but normal service will resume at the weekend....

In Washington DC

  A city that rose from a swamp, though it's hard to see that now. A capital city. A city of grand, monumental statement buildings. A city of museums and art galleries and tourists, of government, of diplomats and bureaucrats of bright, earnest, neatly dressed young people hurrying to work in well-paid government jobs. Thus a city like no other in America.

 
A city with ever-so-slight totalitarian undertones. Security is far edgier than it used to be, especially around the White House. You almost expect a "Zil lane" as they used to have in Moscow for the grand limousines of the apparatchiks.
  The monumental statement building below is the home of the Internal Revenue Service, America's equivalent of the taxman, who have been shown to be naughty boys, scrutinising groups with conservative leanings. The saga continues...
.

And in amongst the monumental buildings, some quaint old houses still cling on in this part of downtown. There are many more, of course, in posh, picturesque Georgetown, to the north-west. The houses here are opposite Ford's Theatre where Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865. They give you an idea of what the city once looked like.

There's a bit of the modern too -

 New reflecting older...

...to be continued......

And the Flying Turkey Goes To....

  You mustn't think I gain any pleasure from giving Flying Turkey Travel Awards - or not much anyway. Well all right, some. But sometimes when I travel, a clear winner presents him/her/itself and, well, what is there to do?
  This story really starts yesterday morning, the day hubby and I were due to fly to Washington for a conference.  When I should have been packing, I was up a ladder in a murderous rage, zapping the caterpillars on our beautiful oak tree with a futile little bottle of spray. I just had to do something, even if it felt like Custer's Last Stand. I despatched a few of them, which gave me some small satisfaction but then decided that I would not be much use to hubby as a travel companion if I fell off the ladder and broke my neck. So I was not in the best of moods.
  Anyway, we were standing in the security line at Buffalo airport when the impatient chap behind me quite blatantly jumped the queue, plonking his bags down ahead of mine. I must say that most American men I meet are extremely polite - it's "Ma'am" this and "Ma'am" that but sadly it appears there are still some who think they can walk all over flustered middle-aged ladies in the security queue. Well he picked the wrong middle-aged lady to mess with. Since he was now holding me up, I put my bags back in front of his, reminding him that he'd jumped the queue. There followed an unpleasant tirade about how rude I was, how he had a plane to catch ("We've all got a plane to catch or we wouldn't be in this dratted queue", I suggested), how I was "taking forever" (not true- we'd both been held up by the man in front who was trying to bring what looked like a pressurised corkscrew onto the plane) how his flight was leaving before mine (he assumed), implying his journey was far more important than mine, etc. I'm afraid I just told him to shut up. Pity the caterpillar spray wasn't to hand.
   He did look rather pathetic, acting the big businessman flying to New York City. It made me wonder what he was doing in Buffalo.  Anyway, if he'd only explained nicely in the first place that he was in a hurry and did I mind awfully if he went in front of me, I would have been all sweetness and light but he did not. The Americans have a nice four-letter word for people like him and it begins with "j" and ends with "k". The Flying Turkey goes to you Sir, with pleasure. Travelling really does bring out the worst in people. Including me.

WNY Rhododendron Mania

Suddenly these giant garish excrescences have appeared at almost every house in Cattaraugus County, in a brief and glorious show...

I snapped most of these out of the car window....

So it just doesn't do them justice. Below is just a tiny corner of this person's display - and not in a very grand part of town either.

The houses had better watch out...

....or they'll be overwhelmed.

There's a front porch behind there somewhere.

The Garden Horror Show Part One

 This, it seems, is shaping up to be the summer of calamities. First, we discovered that carpenter bees have invaded the roof of our porch. And there was I, innocently thinking English country garden, hearing the buzzing and thinking, "How nice to hear the bees!" When actually the brutes have been drilling neat holes in the wood, squeezing in and munching on the house to their heart's content. You can even hear the little jaws going click-click-click....  We have been spraying stuff into the holes and I've even been keeping guard and zapping them as they emerge. It's given me some satisfaction to get a few direct hits but I fear things have got too far. We may have to call The Exterminator.
  But The Exterminator is going to be a busy bloke. I was gardening under one of our small oak trees when something brushued against my face. There, dangling on a fine spun line was a vigorous specimen of the current Cattaraugus County Public Enemy Number One, the gypsy moth caterpillar. I looked up aghast to see the blighters had totally taken over the tree. Spraying them with a little plastic thing which was all I had probably just made them laugh. Apparently the only way to do anything about them is to hire a plane to fly over your property and spray.  My neighbour shook her head, "No point - they're everywhere. If you get rid of them in one place, they'll just come back."  What are all those birds that wake us up in the morning with their squabbling doing? That's it. I'm axing the feeder. Starvation rations for them until they know what hunger is and they're thankful for a load of nice, juicy caterpillars. But we fear we may lose our beautiful oaks.
  Meanwhile, a small bright spot. The rhododendron almost entirely eaten by the deer over the winter has come up with one, single perfect bloom.

I hope that's not its swan song.