Coming to America - 1997

My first trip overseas was to Bethlehem, PA in May 1997. On this trip I met a number of chatters from The Chathouse, among them Jonathan (a deaf canuck), Janine & Jay and Albertine (a transplanted Swiss). I stayed with the latter. The only pic I took in Bethlehem that was really good enough to get scanned was this, of Jonathan.

In addition to the lovely town of Bethlehem (NOT sarcasm), I took a trip to Washington DC with Albertine for two days. We took a bus to DC and had to stop over in the state capital Harrisburg for a few hours. Seemed like a nice town, and it even had the mandatory crazy old man standing in the city square yelling bible quotes at bypassers. Every American city of some size seems to have one… Personally, I think it's something they put in the water.

In DC we stayed at the reasonably priced and very strategically located Allen Lee Hotel. It's not a fancy place but it's safe and it's just five minutes from the White House and from Foggy Bottom subway station. I highly recommend it.

We decided that the best way to see Washington was to jump on a tour bus. We were picked up in the wee early hours, barely awake. I think it was worst on Albie, cause she's a caffeine freak. Me, I'm content with being half asleep for most of the day. It's worked for 28 years, and it worked fine that day too… We spent a little time at Capitol Hill and the Supreme Court, which is located just across the street. I bought books (of course) and took a whole roll of film just capturing the quotes over the doors of the committee rooms at Capitol. Ok, so I'm sick. Shoot me. We then went to The White House. And let me tell you right away - it wasn't worth the waiting. At all.

We then proceeded to The Smithsonian Museum of American History. This is a great museum, and I spent a long time there. Unfortunately, about 90% of that time was spent in line in the souvenir shop with the shop assistant from hell. Allow me to explain. At the Smithsonian, not only do they punch in the price of the object you're purchasing, but for your convenience, they've decided that the code of every single type of object you buy must also be registered. These codes are each approximately the length of Joyce's "Ulysses", and judging from the speed of the old hag behind the counter, about as hard to interpret. It did not help matters that the museum, in a fit of social conscience had decided to employ not only the deaf, blind and senile but someone who was in fact all of the above at once. Again, I blame the drinking water. Albie and I missed our bus and had to catch up with the rest of the group at the Lincoln Memorial (here at sunset in '99).

This area is arguably the greatest place in DC for history buffs like me. In the memorial building Honest Abe sits, looking out over the Mall at the Washington Memorial and Capitol Hill behind that. To the right is the Korean War memorial and to the left the Vietnam memorial. These sites are fitting testimonials to the sacrifice of America in the fight to ensure "a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth", as Abe said in the Gettysburg Address. This speech and excerpts from his 2nd inaugural address are engraved on the walls of the memorial. And it was here in 1963, a hundred years later, that Dr. Martin Luther King gave his great speech.

The day ended at Arlington National Cemetery. We first went to see the grave of the 27th president, William Howard Taft. Taft lost his bid for re-election against Wilson in 1912, largely because of the third party candidacy of former republican president Teddy Roosevelt on the "Bull Moose" ticket. In 1921 President Harding made Taft Chief Justice, a job that Taft himself valued as far above that of the presidency in dignity. And remember, this was more than seventy years before Bill Clinton…

The other great Arlington attraction, the grave of the Kennedys , was closed approximately two minutes before we got there because the SWEDISH ambassador was visiting. As if I didn't already have enough reasons to hate the Swedes… (Norwegians are constitutionally obliged to).

The last day in DC, we went to the National Archives. Seeing the old documents ( The Declaration of Independence , The Constitution and The Bill of Rights ) was as close to a religious experience as I've ever been. These documents, their history and the consequences of that history have changed our world radically, and for the better. My heartfelt thanks to the authors.




Now back to the Old World…



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