Washington part 2 and the end of the holiday.

 I went from a huge house on the outskirts of Washington, to a little space, a pod, the bottom one of three in a 6 person room. Both were lovely.  I was in the Adams Morgan district and I don't know what it is like the rest of the year, but the two nights I stayed were like one big infectious party.  It is perhaps very annoying if you want to sleep, but I just wanted to stay out on the street as much as possible to take in the variety of people, the music blaring out from the speakers set up outside the bars, and the variety of eating places.  There were even eccentric pimped up cars, slowly parading the streets, like something out of a film. but that is America, all of it is something I have only seen before on films (or my history books) and yet it is real. 

Lincoln's View. 

Saturday,  I went back downtown to the Washington that is so familiar, yet none less moving for that - LIncoln Memorial but I approached from the reverse side, from the Potomac, with the runners, and the boats and people playing beach volley ball. And then there is was that view down The Mall, people climbing the steps and one little muddled boy saying it was the White House.  He was not the only one to get his locations confused another parents was telling their child the State Capital was the White House! So both very familiar and yet unfamiliar  Things we see but do not quite understand or absorb.  In fact, the White House was so distant when I got even remotely close to it,  it was hard to conceive that this was such a significant place.

 I hope another time, if I ever get the chance, to go more into the musuems that explain these sights, but I headed to the African American Museum. It was packed and for some reasons the busiest parts were at the bottom of a small dark space,  I wondered if they were trying to get us to understand something visceral about the experience of slavery, in addition to the information that spiralled from bottom  through the history of civil rights to the point of Obama's unprecedented and at one time inconceivable achievement.    I was there a good couple of hours and could have stayed longer but needed sunshine and food.   

Salem

Then the following day,  it really did feel like the holiday was virtually over,  the 8 hour Amtrak journey back to Boston along stunning coastline,sped past and then I was back in Boston.  The weather turned on a dime, it was soaking wet when I finally boarded the boat to Salem and I dripped around the town.  Every vital witch museum was fully booked and a few people were dressed up in something that indicated they were witches, but the numbers in town were probably much lower than normal owing to the weather.  I was happy to potter around and take it all in but I was most interested in the historic buildings.   

My last day, the sun was back out again and it was lovely to go to Harvard, it is a University that seems to wear Autumn clothes well.  There is a building there by Corbusier, but I popped next door instead to the art gallery.  

I could happily stayed living in America (if I could have afforded it) and having weekends in Washington and Harvard and so on.  Instead I walked back through the harbour area and to the hostel, and then that was that. The flight home was effortless, why has it taken me so long to do such an easy journey.  Let's hope the money and energy will last long enough to enable me to return, I am glad and blessed to know America better.