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.