Philly Cheesesteak

My only experience of Philadelphia so far has been from the inside of a train station, but thanks to a friend of ours who is a native we recently got to sample its most famous culinary creation, the cheesesteak.  This is a sandwich (in the American sense, which encompasses a broad church of bread-based foods, in this case it means it comes on a long roll) filled with thinly sliced steak and cheese, at the very least, with added extras depending on who makes it.

Our friend was kind enough to bring us two different kinds, one from Pat's, which has widespread reputation for good cheesesteaks (and is supposed to have been founded by one of the inventors back in the day), and one from Max's which is her personal favourite.

Max's was modestly wrapped in paper, Pat's was more promotional.

Having tried both of these I can honestly say that they were both fantastic but Max's clearly blew Pat's out of the water.  Apparently Pat's use processed cheese (only in America!) while Max's uses real cheese, and it really makes a difference.  And while Pat's added only onions Max's added some kind of tomatoey sauce which moistened everything up delightfully.  Here's a cross-section, Max's on the left, Pat's on the right.

Max's reminded me very much of eating a good steak and cheese pie back in New Zealand, which isn't surprising because there are many similarities.  Given that meat pies are almost entirely lacking in this part of the world, it's obvious that things like the cheesesteak fill the gap.

It's also clear that the City of Brotherly Love knows what its doing.  I've ordered cheesesteaks before in other parts of the country, even the state, and the genuine article is just in a league of its own.  I certainly know what I'll be eating next time I go to Philadelphia!

The plumbing strikes back

I had been going to end the last post by noting that when the Amish fix something, it stays fixed.  Alas our toilet seems to have the devil in it, for not a day had elapsed after they left before it started playing up again.  We've been on to the landlord and have received instructions that Hosea (which I now learn is the satisfyingly exotic name of our erstwhile and taciturn plumber) will appear sometime next week to have another go.

I hope he brings his bible as well as replacement valves, just in case there is more than rust at work and he has to exorcise demonic forces from the cistern.

The Return of the Amish

The Amish are back again.  Long time readers will recall that they fixed our deck earlier in the year.  Now they're back to fix our screen door, some drainage difficulties out the back, and an unrelated problem with the flush in the downstairs toilet (or "half-bathroom" as they're called here, despite not containing a bath).  For thirty years of my life these people might as well have been from a fairy tale, now they're fixing my toilet.  I'm not sure what to make of that.

I'm writing this post to take a break from writing about the next big thing in high speed wireless communications.  Somehow it feels a bit wrong doing that while these famous eschewers of the electric age are downstairs fixing the door.  Admittedly I'm still using a computer as I write this, but at least the subject matter isn't adding insult to injury.  Anyway, I hear the fellow downstairs using his electric drill and possibly even a cell phone...so my overactive conscience is somewhat assuaged.

Unlike last time when they swept in and out with barely a word, this time I have had to interact with them to explain the plumbing difficulties.  I had been going to write - and indeed had just written before I erased it - that these Amish workmen seem cold and unfriendly.  But I've just this minute been on a hunt in the basement for the main water valve (turned out it was hidden behind some slapped-together walls) and I think I should revise that.  Taciturn and quiet, yes.  But not out of hostility, I think, just as a way of using as few words as possible.  They've got a job to do, you know.  Mind you, they don't say hello or goodbye.  I don't know their names, they come and go without a word.  So maybe not cold, but certainly rather chilly.

It's an interesting experience, trying to learn about a people from the way they mend your house, and a technique that anthropologists would no doubt frown upon as full of methodological flaws.  It's the only one I've got, though, so I'll have to stick with it even if it leaves me with more questions than answers.

Thanksgiving fare

Thanksgiving was last Thursday, followed by a few days off for Mrs Walles and I.  We needed it after preparing all the food.  There was the turkey, of course...

 ...and bread stuffing with cranberries...

...fresh bread...

...along with yams (the American kind, like sweet potatoes), cornbread, more stuffing (cornbread this time, out of a packet), gravy, cranberry sauce and, as a token gesture towards nutritional balance, green beans.

Then there was dessert.  I made two pumpkin pies - to test the difference between fresh and canned pumpkin - and an apple pie.

There were only the two of us, but that just meant that we had leftovers right through the weekend, plus a few things for the freezer.  I wasn't going to let my first Thanksgiving pass without all the usual trimmings, just because there would be far too much food.  That's seldom a good enough reason to stop me doing anything!

Turkey time

It's Thanksgiving next week, and Mrs Walles and I are well prepared.  In past years one of the local supermarkets has given away free turkeys if you have enough loyalty points.  This year turkey prices are unusually high so they aren't offering that, but by biding our time and keeping our eyes open (most of the credit here going to Mrs Walles) we found one for 45¢ per pound. We got an almost twenty pound bird for less than eight dollars plus extra money off next time we fill up the car, which just about makes it even in my mind.

The idea that an entire turkey can be bought for less than ten dollars - a real flesh and blood bird, not a photograph - seems remarkable to me. Apparently some of the locals have become conditioned by Thanksgiving deals into thinking a turkey at Thanksgiving is an inalienable right, like freedom of speech and guns.  There was a man behind us at the checkout when we bought ours who was almost apoplectic with anxiety that he might miss out on his free poultry, and then even more so when the cashier told him, in effect, that if he was waiting for a free one he'd better go and catch it himself (which, as this demonstrates, is quite possible).

We also picked up ten cans of cranberry sauce on special, which should tide us over.  It might not be so much a matter of having sauce with our turkey next week, as having turkey with our sauce.

Now we just have to decide how to cook it.  I've cooked turkeys a few times here but I want to do something a bit special for the holiday meal, and my mind is turning to stuffing.  That poses a problem, because I like the dense, moist kind of stuffing that goes inside the bird and is traditional where I come from.   But I also like the comparatively dry herbed bread cubes that are traditional here and cook separately.  I don't know if I'll be able to choose between them, so that turkey had better look out: it's going to be well and truly stuffed this Thanksgiving.

Election Day

Last Tuesday was Election Day here in the US.  They have it every year, on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November.  It's a Tuesday because that used to be market day, or some such, which was a good day for people to vote on.  Now it's Tuesday because it always has been and if it was good enough for grandpappy it's good enough for me.

That certainly seems to be the gist of it, and Mrs Walles was complaining how silly it is that Election Day is not a holiday so that people could get to the polls if they so wished. 

The reason they need to have an Election Day each year is that they do like a vote here (whether they actually use the vote is a different matter, but they clearly like the option to be there).  In Pennsylvania they vote judges in and out of office, and district attorneys and all manner of relatively minor public officials at the local and state level.  Some states like to hold referenda on legislative issues, what they call voting on propositions.  Mississippi had a contentious one on whether an embryo is a person (they decided that it isn't).

All this reminded me that there is an election back in New Zealand that I have a say in, so I got my papers filled in ready to send away.  I suppose I could have posted my papers away on Tuesday, to get into the swing of things here, but in many matters I'm a traditionalist, so I sent them away on Saturday instead.

A matter of degree

The weather is cooling rapidly now.  No more snow since the big storm last week, but the temperatures have been dipping down low overnight - we've had several good hard frosts.  Even the squirrels are getting up later in the morning when it is warmer.

The other night it got down to twenty five degrees, which I'm used to thinking of as comfortable room temperature, but which here is a chilly frost.  Though that's not as disconcerting as temperatures reaching one hundred degrees in the summer, which to me sounds like I should be actually on fire, rather than just feeling like I am.

Yes, this Fahrenheit business is all very confusing.  Like all the other measures here it takes a bit of getting used to. I have to try to remember that sixty something is room temperature and a hundred or thereabouts is blood temperature and so on.  But it's a little more complicated with temperature, too, because it is not just that a degree of Fahrenheit is smaller than a degree of Celsius, but the zeroes are in different places.  That really throws me.

I'm very used to talking about temperatures below zero as being freezing, because that's where water freezes in Celsius.  But water freezes at thirty two degrees Fahrenheit.  If you say the temperature is below zero here you mean not just cold but bits-of-you-turn-blue-and-fall-off cold.  I still catch myself in the winter about to say "below zero" and quickly substitute "below freezing".  Except when I forget.  Then I get the odd looks suggesting I have a poor grasp on reality.  You know, as if I ordered mayonnaise on my salad, or something.

And here comes another winter.  Another opportunity to hone my vocabulary into a more US-friendly form.  At least in public.  In private I'll think whatever I like because there's nobody around to give me a frosty look.

I'm dreaming of a white October the 29th

More unusual weather this morning.  As I look out the window while I type this is is snowing.  Now for a southern hemisphere lad like me snow in October is a very odd thing anyway, but even for the locals it's odd to get a snow storm this early in the Autumn (as I insist on calling it when nobody else is around).

It's supposed to be a doosie, too, with a foot or more of heavy, wet snow predicted all across the northeastern United States (and I presume into Canada, too, even though to watch the TV you'd think the weather stops at the border).  It hasn't started settling yet, but with that much falling it can only be a matter of time before the landscape turns white.

Talk about a cold snap, we only got our first frost yesterday morning and already the snow is piling on.  There are still flowers in bloom in our little garden!

It will likely all be melted by tomorrow afternoon, though, and it really is a cold snap so daytime temperatures will probably be up a little again once this sorts itself out.  For the moment, though, Mrs Walles and I will just have to wrap up warm when we venture out later, and add salt to our shopping list to spread on the driveway if the snow turns out to be more persistent than forecast.

Plus it is lovely to watch the snow falling.  Unlike some jaded souls here who, thanks to many hard winters, have come to treat snow as just an inconvenience, I still get excited by a big dump of snow.  Especially one that I don't have to shovel the next morning!

Are you well?

In New Zealand (at least when I left, hopefully things have not declined too far in the intervening months) prescription drug advertising is a relatively new thing, having been legalised only a few years ago.  So it's not much of a problem, you can just tune out the few ads that you come across.

In the United States things are much more advanced.  I assume there has never been any restriction on drug advertising - presumably it would be unconstitutional.  But however it relates to the nation's constitution, it has a poor effect on my constitution because it is everywhere, especially on television.  I doubt an ad break goes by without at least one long spiel for some wonder drug or other.  That may reflect in part the kind of channels I watch - programming targeted towards the geriatric end of the audience will include more such advertising, I suppose, but even on the channels targeted toward the more youthful and (one would think) healthy end of the market carries these ads.  If you don't think there's anything wrong with you, they try to make you think there might be, and then sell you the pill to fix it.

Just off the top of my head I can think of commercials I've seen for drugs to treat arthritis, depression, insomnia, heart disease, acne, indigestion, psoriasis, short eyelashes and dry eyes.  They're all soothing, slick and positive with gentle muzak in the background, certainly never depicting the diseases they're about  That's no doubt to counter the lengthy voice over that lists the risks and side-effects from taking the medicine (I'm particularly amazed by the psoriasis drug that seems to be carcinogenic, and the surprising number of drugs that warn they may increase your risk of death).  By the end of it all you may still not have a desire to take the drug they're hawking, but you may want a little something for the nagging depression the ads produce.

Then of course you get the ads placed by lawyers to attract people who have taken drug X and may be entitled to compensation.  Presumably because the manufacturers left something off the long list of risks.  There's one on CNN right now as I type this.

It's makes me sick, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.  The pharmaceutical companies are probably already working to create a pill to cure this revulsion.  They can advertise it on television.  They'll make a mint.

Pints and pounds

In America they have a saying, which apparently gets drummed into kids at school, that "a pint's a pound the whole world round."

It's catchy and memorable and even though it's patently false.  It is roughly true that a US pint of water (the pint is from the US, it doesn't matter where the water comes from) weighs almost exactly one US pound.

Where it really falls over, of course, is the "whole world round" part, because the definition stops at the border.  The imperial system once used in New Zealand (and around the Commonwealth) defines the pound the same, but the pint is about a quarter as large again as its US cousin - much to the delight of beer drinkers who dwell outside the US border.

Not that it matters in most cases, because most of the rest of the world has converted to metric, and as a child of the metric system I've hitherto had little to do with pints and pounds anyway.  I did have to memorise that an inch is 25.4mm so that I could use the old lathes in the metalwork room at high school, and I'm aware that glass milk bottles (if they still exist) are about a pint and butter comes in blocks close to a pound, but that's about the extent of my acquaintance.

This is a good thing, because otherwise I'd be in a much greater state of confusion than I am.  If I already had a feeling for pints I'd have to unlearn everything I already knew.  It's bad enough just learning what I don't know about all these measurements.

One nice thing about the US pint is that it's equal to two cups, which are close enough to metric cups that it doesn't matter in recipes.  And two pints makes a quart which in the US system is just a little less than a litre, which also makes things easier.  I'm gradually getting the hang of it.  A few more years and my measurement skills may even measure up themselves.

A story with legs

The other day I decided to finally resow the grass under an old rubber mat we had been using on the lawn.  I've become accustomed to lifting the mat up when I mow so I was expecting there to be an assortment of the kinds of creepy crawlies that live under rocks and old rubber mats.  This time, though, the bounty was truly prodigious.  As well as the occasional beetle and earthworm, there were a few leeches and some enormous, fat worms.  As soon as they were exposed to daylight, most of these headed for the safety and darkness of their various underground lairs.  But two or three of the huge worms didn't really move - until one of them lifted itself up on its legs and scurried off.

Now I'm not much of a naturalist, but truth that I will cling to in a storm is that worms don't have legs.  For a moment I thought I'd uncovered some kind of unearthly hell-beasts.  Then I wondered if the chipmunks had started evolving to better suit the increasingly aquatic environment outside our back door.  But then I realised that these ten centimetre long creatures were salamanders, tiny amphibians, land-lubber cousins of the much more spectacular hell bender that lives in the waterways here.

There are a number of varieties found here according to my references.  Not something we have in New Zealand outside of high-school science labs, really.  I'm not sure exactly what species these are but from what I've read land-dwelling salamanders don't have lungs, instead absorbing oxygen through their skin.  That means they don't have to move to breathe, of course, which no doubt helped the initial illusion that they were worms.  Some of them also have that neat trick of dropping their tail when startled, to distract predators, though all tails seemed to stay attached this time.

I left them alone for a while and when I came back to sow the grass seed they'd obviously found their way to safety.  An interesting and exciting encounter, but one which reminds me I have to take more care when investigating nooks and crannies over here.  It was just some harmless salamanders this time, but there are nastier things that lurk in dark corners that I'd really rather avoid.

What I learned about Williamsport

Until last weekend I had only a glancing knowledge of Williamsport.  Even though it's fairly close by, I'd only passed through it once when we went to Niagara Falls two years ago.  About all I learnd then was that it is home to the Little League Hall of Fame, and general headquarters of the of all things little league.  That's little nippers playing baseball, to the uninitiated, but it's a pretty big deal in these parts.

This time I noticed that the little leaguers were flying an enormous American flag.  I was left wondering how big the one flown at the grown-up baseball hall of fame must be if the little league merits the flag they have.

Anyway, the other two things I knew about Williamsport were that it was the scene of an attack by Native Americans of some settlers in the eighteenth century, and that not far away over the mountains begins the basin of the Ohio River, which ultimately leads to the Mississippi (though I should mention I haven't checked either of these "facts" very closely).

After our recent foray I now know two more things about the town.  First, as I wrote the other day, they know how to lay on a book sale.  And second, where to get lunch.  For after we'd rummaged around the books we retired to the Bullfrog Brewery for pretzels and sandwiches.  Mrs Walles had turkey, cheese, apple and caramelised onions while I went for simple pork loin and both were excellent.  It's one of the many good microbreweries that litter this part of the countryside, most of which have their own bar attached where you can admire all the shiny equipment in which their product is busily fermenting.

We were both amused, as we looked for a place to park the car, that most of the spaces beside the brewery are reserved for an organisation that aims to fight alcoholism.  Maybe at the end of a long day fighting alcoholism the only cure is a drink?

Anyway, I am pleased to report that Williamsport is a very tidy and pretty place.  It's a large town with solid architecture in the middle of town, where we were, but that centre is not so large that it's intimidating.  Mrs Walles tells me that there are bad parts of Williamsport, but I didn't see any of them. 

I was very happy to visit and it is nice to see the centre of a town, since you so often bypass the centre when you're travelling here, and get no real feel for the towns you are passing "through".  We're sure to be back again, whenever books or sandwiches call to us again.

The Masterpiece Mystery mystery

On Saturday Mrs Walles and I took a trip to the town Williamsport.  This would have been the weekend that her family visited and we all partook of the delights of the state fair, until the rain put a stop to that (the sun, by the way, has finally made an appearance this afternoon).  Mrs Walles found a good consolation prize in the form of a book sale organised by the friends of the library in Williamsport, which I was gratified to discover was being held in a Methodist church hall.  Having attended the annual book sale in my home town - also held in a church hall - every year like clockwork until all this going-to-America business intervened, it was pleasing to see that some things are the same the world round.

This particular sale only lasts three days and we visited on the morning of the last day so I was worried things might have been picked through.  I need not have worried, though, and between us we managed to select forty seven volumes which, thanks to the rather generous pricing scheme, we managed to get for much less than a dollar apiece.

Among other things I stocked up on British mystery novels.  I've a weakness for a good mystery and apparently so do the American library-going public as there were plenty to choose from.  But then this shouldn't have been a surprise, having watched Masterpiece Mystery on public television.  They've been playing Inspector Lewis in this slot the last few weeks.  Now, where I come from something like Inspector Lewis is the televisual equivalent of the mystery novel.  You expect exotic settings, eccentric characters, a lot of bodies and even more red herrings, and for someone other than the butler to have done it in the end.  Good stuff, and well done, but not exactly on par with the roof of the Sistine Chapel or the Mona Lisa.

But I suspect that the viewers here don't see things the same way.  Each episode comes prefixed with an introduction by the actor Alan Cumming. He's best known - to me at least - as Boris from Goldeneye, but he possesses a pleasant Scottish brogue which lends gravitas to proceedings.  Cumming treats Lewis with reverence, like a lost Shakespeare play, as he explains the set up for this week's plot.  But I don't think that's his real purpose.  Here, he seems to be saying, here is the good stuff ladies and gentlemen, and let us pause a moment, bask in its radiance, and give thanks before the tape starts rolling.

Maybe I'm wrong and it's all just a bit of window dressing.  Perhaps everyone realises it's a bit silly but they keep at it because it's what they've always done.  Alan Cumming always seems to have a slight smirk as he delivers the little sermon, so I suspect he at least thinks it's a bit over the top.  Or maybe they really have been so starved of decent telly that a decent British murder mystery is like manna from heaven.

Anyway, it's really just an amusement to me and all the more tolerable because once Alan finishes his blessing the whole show runs without ads.  Perhaps New Zealand networks should treat their shows with a bit more reverence if this is the result!

Wet feet

The rain that has beset us for some weeks now is set to depart.  According to the National Weather Service we can expect the sun to appear in a couple of days time.  To which I say: what is this "sun" they speak of?  It's not quite as bad as that but there have been a lot of grey days in the past few weeks, very little sun and an awful lot of rain.

Last Wednesday the rain was particularly awful as it started seeping into our basement.  Fortunately I just happened to go down there as it started so I was able to reduce its impact.  Nothing was really at risk, except an old bed which was quickly moved out of harm's way.  But there were a lot of cardboard boxes down there that I have been slowly cutting up and disposing of.

Of course I'm not used to having a basement, but they are ubiquitous here.  Not every American home has a basement (in some places the water table is too high to make them practical, for one thing) but they are extremely widespread.  I can tell you now that they are a double-edged sword.  On the one hand it's like having a whole extra level to the house, and somewhere to hide all those annoying utilitarian machines - which in the case of a typical American home means at least the washing machine and dryer, the hot water cylinder and the central heating and air conditioning.  We have all of these in our basement, plus enough space to have a little room down there, finished and carpeted which we use to hold the spillover when we have guests to stay.

The bad part is that you have a big empty underground chamber beneath the house that's only too happy to fill with water if the conditions are right.  To counteract this they have drainage built in and are sealed to prevent even damp getting in.  They are impervious to water, or at least they are supposed to be.  But if you have a little hole, and erosion of the soil around the foundation, all it takes is a good strong rainstorm for the water to start pouring in.  And that's what happened to us last week.

It's not normally a problem but the ground is already so wet (we could grow rice in the back yard at the moment) and there was such a cloudburst, that the water had nowhere to go.

So I spent the rest of last week cutting up boxes and bagging them ready for disposal.  Now I just have to mop the floor with bleach and we'll be just about back to normal.  Apart from that nagging feeling whenever the rain comes that the basement might be filling with water, spurring yet another visit downstairs to ease my mind.  I'm looking forward to some sunny weather.

John the Greek

The state fair may have been cancelled, but apparently that hasn't deterred many of the food vendors who have set themselves up along one of the roads leading into Bloomsburg.  We received intelligence of this on Thursday and on Friday acted on it swiftly and decisively, like some kind of gastronomic US marines.  We battled the conditions - twenty minutes standing in driving rain, plus an indignant man behind us who abused the staff because they didn't accept credit cards - but it was worth it in the end.

We picked John the Greek as it seemed well patronised.  We both ordered a gyro (which is a bit like a doner kebab, but from the other side of the Aegean) and shared some stuffed vine leaves (which I believe are called dolmades, but since that belief is based entirely on a sketch from the first season of A Bit of Fry and Laurie could well be wrong).  I've become particularly partial to the vine leaves since trying them earlier this year on Long Island, and since we don't really have any Greek places around here I wasn't going to let the opportunity pass without indulging again.

Mrs Walles also got dessert.  Now, for some people just cheesecake alone is good enough, but not for fair-going Pennsylvanians, it seems.  What's better than cheesecake?  Why frozen cheesecake dipped in chocolate, of course.  And what's better than frozen chocolate-dipped cheesecake?  Frozen chocolate-dipped cheesecake on a stick! (Keep up!).  In fact all manner of frozen chocolate-covered items on a stick were available.  I was a bit dubious, which is why I didn't order anything myself, but after trying Mrs Walles's I know to get one myself next time.

We beat a hasty retreat home to eat, before we dissolved in the rain.  It was getting dark so we couldn't see if there were any vendors of more traditional fair fare, like funnel cake or those apple dumplings that everyone recommends, but we'll probably get another opportunity to look later in the week.  There's hope yet of getting some fair dinkum fair food.

Service without a smile

Mrs Walles and I seem to have developed an odd affliction: when we go out to restaurants recently the waitress brings the bill to the table before we've even finished our mains, leaving no opportunity to order dessert.  Now anyone who knows us will attest that we certainly look like people who could be persuaded to peruse the dessert tray, so it seems likely we've just struck a couple of people who want to finish their shift.  Either that or they've decided we look like we've already taken advantage of the dessert tray enough and are withholding it from us for our (in their judgement) own good.

The other night we went to a favourite eatery.  We hadn't been out to dinner in a while and we planned to do the thing properly, but we were denied dessert again.  We'd also been going to order a little something to take home for lunch the next day, but we couldn't do that either.  I guess we could have piped up and said we wanted to order something more, but why should we have to?  And besides, then we'd be dealing with a snotty server and who knows what unsanctioned extras would find their way into the coffee?

This actually hurts her more than it hurts us - we just paid and left and picked up desert from Dunkin' Donuts.  She didn't get as big a tip as she might have, partly because we didn't appreciate the service, and partly because she missed out on 15% of whatever dessert, coffee and lunch would have cost.  It all goes to show that tipping isn't necessarily the good motivator that is supposed to be.  And also that it's easy to find bad service in America.  But - and I may have said this before - at least it's sincerely bad service.  Still, I think I'd rather have insincerely good service than sincerely bad service if it means the difference between a pleasant night out and an evening cut short. 

The cider house rules

Mrs Walles came home yesterday bearing the sad news that that the state fair has indeed been cancelled.  So no funnel cake and freshly squeezed cider for me this year, either.  I'm not sure how this is going to affect our plans: Mrs Walles has family coming in specially and we have yet to see whether small-town Pennsylvania is still enough of a draw without the fair.  Mind you, there is at least one other bucolic attraction that we were planning to show them, some kind of autumnal festivity that I don't know much about.  I'm not sure about the details, but I hope there's cider involved.

Speaking of cider, I wouldn't want you to think I'd turned into an old lush.  That's just what they call apple juice here.  Well, some apple juice.  From what I can tell, Ned Flanders had it right.  Clear apple juice is apple juice, and the cloudy stuff is cider.  Unless it's hard cider, in which case it's the kind of cider I'm familiar with, complete with alcoholic content (or so I assume from talking to people, I haven't actually encountered any yet).  Soft cider (served hot or cold) is a fairly popular drink here in the fall autumn and it has just started appearing on the supermarket shelves.  The weather may be starting to cool but Americans cleverly compensate for this with a number of delicious traditional seasonal treats.  And who would I be to buck tradition?

Fair's fair

The flood waters have receded, leaving devastation in their wake.  Mrs Walles and I took a little walk around town at the peak on Friday and gawped at the water rising almost to the tops of the flood banks.  If it wasn't for the banks then a sizable portion of our town would have been underwater.  Other towns along the Susquehanna River which weren't similarly protected really were underwater, including Bloomsburg, the town that traditionally hosts the state fair at the end of September.

As a result there was concern that the fair may have to be cancelled this year.  Justified concern, given that the fairgrounds were under several metres of water last week.  Although this is the third summer I've spent here I have yet to experience the fair: the last two times I've been here on a visitor's permit and it has run out before the fair starts.  It would be a shame to miss it again as it is, by all accounts, a sight to behold.  It's a bit like a giant A&P show, an extravaganza of farming, entertainment and food.  For months friends and acquaintances have been reeling off lists of stands I have to visit to partake of apple cider, apple fritters, ice cream, pizza, funnel cake, toffee apples and more (I've just realised how dominant a theme apples are in the line up - not that I'm complaining).

It is galling that now I am here for keeps I may still miss the fair thanks to the weather.  Never mind all those people whose lives have been turned upside down by historic floods or even those who rely on the fair for their livelihoods.  I might not get to try fresh apple fritters with cinnamon ice cream. That's the real tragedy here.

Wet, wet, wet

It never rains but it pours, literally for us right now.  On Sunday afternoon it started raining and did that straight through until Thursday morning.  After missing the worst of Irene two other tropical depressions conspired to dump an almost unprecedented quantity of water on central and northeast Pennsylvania.  Pinched in between the remnants of tropical storm Lee to the west and Hurricane Katia far out in the Atlantic, moisture from the south had nowhere to go except over a narrow band over the state.  Fortunately we live on a hill, but parts of our town are already flooded a nail-biting few hours are coming up as the Susquehanna River, the main artery of this part of the world, approaches its crest.  Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated throughout the region.

It's a fifty or one hundred year flood, and is being compared to the terrible flooding caused by tropical storm Agnes in 1972.  Indeed when large parts of th city of Wilkes-Barre were evacuated today, rather than give a list of places that were affected, people were told instead that places flooded by Agnes were to evacuate.  Amazingly that was as specific as it got - if you weren't around thirty nine years ago the local TV station was recommending that you ask your neighbours.  It seems bizarre to me, but then Mrs Walles pointed out that people are like that around here.  If you ask for directions they will include landmarks that haven't existed for years.  "Oh, you want to go there?  Well, you know where so-and-so used to be?"  You're just supposed to know.

Luckily our fate isn't bound up in one of these vague proclamations. I'm most worried about our water becoming contaminated, especially as there doesn't seem to be a very reliable way to find out if we have to boil it.  Maybe you're just supposed to know that, too, from the way the wind is blowing or something.  I'm keeping an eye on the TV just in case they mention it there instead.  That is one revelation in this situation, the round the clock coverage by the local TV of the flooding including warnings and notices specific to our county and town.  Much better than huddling around the radio, as I probably would be in the same situation in New Zealand.

At least this time there are flood banks and, as long as they hold, the devastation caused by Agnes won't be repeated.  It's bad enough, though, for those affected.  And though we sometimes complain about the steep roads leading up to it, we are very thankful for our little house on the hill right now.

Smithsonian

For two days I had to amuse myself in Washington from breakfast until dinner and I spent the majority of that time in various museums of the Smithsonian Institution.  I can't recommend these enough.  Where else can you see the Hope Diamond...

...the capsule used by Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins on their moon shot in 1969...

...the Spirit of St Louis...

...the bones of a Neanderthal...

 ...and Julia Child's kitchen?

Nowhere, that's where.  I spent a whole day in the Air and Space Museum, and then a few hours each on the second day looking around the Natural History Museum and the American History Museum.

Mrs Walles joined me for the last one.  One of the feature attractions there is the Star Spangled Banner, the actual flag that flew over Fort McHenry at Baltimore as the British were repelled in 1814 and which inspired the words to the US national anthem.  It's not in a good state, having had bits snipped off over the years as souvenirs, and like the documents in the National Archive it is too fragile to allow photography.

Another noted attraction of the American History Museum is the collection of First Ladies' gowns.  Mrs Walles and I enjoyed speculating on the origins of some of the convoluted connections between early First Ladies and their respective presidents.  A surprising number of wives were absent, and two presidents had remarried while in office.  Quite a few First Ladies were sisters, daughters or nieces or in-laws.

Huge geek that I am I was very moved to see things like the Apollo 11 capsule in the Air and Space Museum.  But I was also moved by another spacecraft there for entirely different reasons.

That is SpaceShipOne, which one the X Prize a few years ago for being the first privately built vehicle to reach space (and which Richard Branson is now trying to commericialise).  But it was significant for me because when I decided to have a go at this writing lark back in 2003 the very first article I had published was about the X Prize.  I remember that it had an illustration of this very craft accompanying it, and now I've seen it in the flesh.

Back when the Smithsonian's collection was still housed in one building it gained the nickname of "America's attic", from the enormous jumble of things that it contained.  And while it has been split now into about a dozen museums, their close proximity (most are on the Mall) means you can still get that effect by meandering from one museum to the next and taking in as much as you can.  I only took in a tiny amount of the museums I visited - and there are still museums I didn't even get to - so I'll definitely be going back

Oh and did I mention that they are all free?  The US taxpayer spends almost a billion dollars a year funding all this for the greater good of the nation.  The Smithsonian really is a remarkable thing.  It was created out of a bequest by a British scientist, James Smithson who died in 1829.  He never visited America but left his fortune to the US government to increase and diffuse knowledge.  From what I've seen I'd say they've lived up pretty well to his wishes.

The Squirrels

The last couple of days we've tried a different tack with putting nuts out for the squirrels.  Instead of throwing out great handfuls of nuts at once, which attracts a big and annoying flock of blue jays, we've just been dispensing one or two at a time as demand dictates.

One of the squirrels apparently isn't too happy with this scheme.  He had figured out that he could attract my attention by jumping on a chair near the glass door.  But when I went into the next room he realised this wasn't working so decided to up the ante.  I was sitting on the couch when I heard a thump and then discovered he had climbed up the outside of the screen door.

(Incidentally, if you look very close you can see why I'm so sure he's a he.)  I'm not sure if he thought he'd be better able to attract my attention or if he just wanted a better look inside to see where Mrs Walles and I were.  It was quite adorable, though I'm now trying to discourage him from repeating the stunt in case he tears the screen.

Here's a tip

Last night I was discussing the blog with an acquaintance and I said one of the things I was trying to get across was all the unexpected little differences between New Zealand and the US.  Since we were in a restaurant I gave the example of having to hold on to your cutlery between courses (not that I said cutlery, since that only means knives here - yet another little difference).

I almost brought up tipping as an example, too, but then realised it wasn't a very good example because I knew about tipping before I came here.  What I didn't know, however, was the details and mechanics of it all.  It's been an adjustment, but it's just something you have to get used to.  Initially I was reserved about handing over tips because in New Zealand I think that many people are embarrassed to take a tip.  But here they want your money, and many don't mind fawning over you to get it.

If you go into a restaurant and order some food eventually the bill will arrive.  The first thing you have to do is take the total and add on 15-20% (and in your head, no less...I mean c'mon!).  As a New Zealander, with a mild repugnance towards the idea of tipping, it took me quite a while to get used to adding on so much for service, even when the service is quite bad.  There are people who say that you don't have to tip at all if the service is bad enough, but I've yet to see anyone walk the walk on that one.  But it's just a part of life here, and it's how the waiting staff make their money, so even though everyone bemoans tipping they all go along with it.

It took me even longer to get used to how the tip is paid.  The exact approach depends on whether you are paying by cash or card and whether you have exact change or not.  Many places you pay at the table, others you pay at the counter.  There are apparently subtle clues to tell you which is which, though I haven't become attuned to all of these yet.  Tips are only for service, so in places where you aren't served at your table you don't have to tip...except that there are some slightly ambiguous places like the barbecue joint we frequent where you order and pay as you enter but someone brings out your food.  That mystery was solved when we found that they had a tip jar near the door.

Restaurants aren't the only things that demand tips, though.  When you arrive at any reasonably big hotel you practically have to fight off the small army of bell boys trying to snatch your bags so that they can get a tip from you.  If the doorman of the hotel gets you a cab you have to slip them a couple of bucks.  And the cab driver needs a tip - notionally in the same 15-20% range but generally whatever makes the fare up to a good round number which is often much more than that.  Airport shuttle drivers get a tip if they lift your bags.  Hairdressers expect a tip.

If you're living in a small town like we are then tipping isn't a day to day thing.  But in a big city like New York the money flows very freely - has to flow freely or the service dries up.  On the other hand if you tip well, and they remember you, you will often get the royal treatment.  So it can be hard for the tipping-averse to get accustomed to, but in the end it is worth it.  That's my tip to you.

National Archives

One of the things I was rushing away from the White House to see was the National Archives.

That's the only photo I got because inside no photography is allowed at all.  There was a long line to get in and then more waiting in an antechamber tantalisingly close to my goal: the Constitution, Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights.  My only disappointment was that the Magna Carta which is usually on display was away being restored.  But it was only a very slight disappointment.

These are housed in what they call the Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom (yes, well, I'll let them off this time, they're obviously very proud of these documents) which is enormous and decorated a pair of murals of the signing of the declaration and the signing of the constitution.  Unfortunately the entire thing is lit so poorly that it's hard to see these as the artist intended, but they are still impressive.    You can see them online here probably better than I could in person.

The low light is due to the state of the documents which have had a tumultuous life and weren't always looked after that well.  Despite being restored recently it's very difficult to make out much of the original text.  But the larger stuff is still plain enough, like the "We the people" at the top of the Constitution and the "July 4 1776" on the Declaration. I saw John Hancock's flamboyant signature on the Declaration, from which we get the expression "John Hancock" for signature, though it wasn't quite as flamboyant as I was expecting.  And there were also recognisable signatures from other famous figures like Jefferson, Adams, Franklin and the like.  I was also amused by the error in the Constitution, which one of the guards pointed out, where Pennsylvania is spelled wrong.

During busy times visitors are let into the rotunda in groups of about fifty, and you only have a few minutes to look around before the next group comes.  But it's all you really need.  Before you go in a guard gives you a little pep talk and tells people not to try to read every last jot and tittle, but that doesn't stop people from trying and eventually being moved on.  You really go for the experience of seeing these historic documents first hand (even if they are behind thick layers of bullet proof glass).  I'd heard so much about them, and there they were in front of me.

It was well worth the wait.

The White House

I didn't have time to take a tour of the White House while we were in Washington, but I definitely wasn't going to let the trip pass without at least walking past it, which I did on the morning of the last day.  It was quite close to our hotel, though it was a bit of a maze finding my way there (I assume this is intentional, to help thwart evildoers).  But I just headed in what I thought was roughly the right direction and eventually found myself on a thin path on the south side, about two metres wide, full of people.  As you can see there was a big iron fence which somewhat obstructed the view.

 The bars were wide enough to fit the camera through, though, to get some fence-free shots.  In some ways, then, the photos were better than actually being there.

It looked smaller than I expected, and far away.  Though there are other attached buildings hiding behind the trees on either side.

The tourists on the path were from all nations, and there was a cacophony of languages being spoken.  The one uniting thing, though, was that every so often out of the babbling brook of unfamiliar sounds I could hear the single word "Obama" spoken in a dozen different tongues.

Once I had my photos and had paused for a few minutes to admire the view, I moved on.  I had two more memorials to see and then three museums after that.  I'm sure I'll visit 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue again sometime for a closer look, assuming that it isn't shaken to the ground or blown away in the meantime.  Somehow I doubt it - if it survived being burned by the British in 1814 I'm sure it will survive anything.

Here's the updated map.

After the storm

By the time Hurricane Irene reached us late Saturday night it had already weakened somewhat and, combined with the fact that we were on the periphery meant that we only got a good soaking rain and a little bit of wind.  Other parts of the region did not fare so well - North Carolina and Virginia, where she first came ashore, were battered quite badly and flooding caused problems right up the East Coast, even affecting places one or two counties away from us.

Mrs Walles and I followed along on the Weather Channel.  On Sunday morning, as the eye approached New York City, the presenters seemed to manifest a kind of macabre hope that Irene would retain her hurricane status all the way to Manhattan, which would make it the first direct hit from a hurricane there in over a hundred years.  In the end she was downgraded to a tropical storm just before she hit New York.  That didn't stop her leaving a path of flooding and blackouts all the way through New England into Canada.

Millions of people were without power (including some of the family of Mrs Walles on Long Island) and many still are.  At least ten people were killed.  And flooding is still creating havoc according to the news.

And so I have weathered my first hurricane, even if it was right at the edge and even if it was "only" category one.  I'm still chalking it up.  And, frankly, I'm not worried about getting closer to the centre or seeking out category fives, thanks very much.  Last week demonstrated that not even here, in Pennsylvania, are we completely immune to the more dramatic forces of nature.  There's no escape and, though I imagine the people of Virginia might disagree, I guess you just have to roll with the punches.

Just when I thought it was safe to go outside...

It turns out that the earthquake the other day was just a distraction from the impending hurricane which has already caused more devastation than that little shake.

Hurricane Irene is shaping up to be the worst in decades.  It's already come ashore in the Carolinas and is heading through Virginia on its way to Philadelphia, New York City and Long Island, Boston and points north.  Normally, hundreds of miles inland as I am, even if a hurricane got that close it wouldn't be much of a problem.  But Irene is huge, hundreds of miles across, big enough that even now the very edges of it are making themselves felt where we are.  The forecast is for likely tropical storm conditions tonight where we are - meaning strong winds and lots and lots of rain.

So Mrs Walles and I are hunkering down.  She grew up on Long Island which, because it sticks out into the Atlantic, catches more hurricanes than much of the mainland.  So she knows what to do.  We've secured everything outside, stocked up on food and water, and in the (extremely unlikely) event that we need to retreat to the basement we've got that in a habitable state.

Realistically we're most worried about flooding and power cuts.  So if you don't hear from me, it's less likely that I've been blown away and more likely that the internet has been cut off.  Which doesn't sound good either - but is definitely the lesser of two evils!

Shake, rattle and roll

I really thought that when I moved to Pennsylvania that I had left earthquakes behind in New Zealand.  Which is why I didn't figure out what was going on the other day when the big one struck Virginia until it was almost over.


It really was hard to believe it was an earthquake, even while it was going on.  It's not an earthquake prone place.  This was the biggest earthquake on the East Coast since a 5.8 in New York in 1944.  This quake was felt by tens of millions of people who live up and down the coast and many of them have never felt an earthquake before.  I had more or less assumed that I wouldn't feel one as long as I lived here - let alone within months of moving.


Despite its relative weakness it was felt as far away as Chicago and Toronto.  Apparently the waves from earthquakes travel well on the East Coast of the US because it's all one big slab of old rock.  Buildings were evacuated in Washington and New York.  It was the only thing on CNN all afternoon.  There was little damage reported (although the Washington Monument, featured so much in these very pages, was damaged and has been closed indefinitely) but a lot of fear was inspired.


I got over it pretty quickly, but as with all earthquakes there are those few moments of concern about how long it's going to go on and how bad it will get.  Once the bottles stopped rattling, though, I knew I was okay and went off to find out what was up.   I toyed for a few seconds with the idea that a nuclear bomb had gone off somewhere, so unlikely did an earthquake seem.  Wouldn't it be just typical, too, nuclear winter arriving just as the tomatoes are coming in?  The reality soon became clear, though, and shortly after the earth stopped shaking, I did too.

Jefferson Memorial

Washington and Lincoln are all very well, but my man is Thomas Jefferson, and here is his memorial, across the Tidal Basin from the other two.

It's very much in the style of the Lincoln Memorial, though not as large.  Lincoln's is supposed to be a Greek temple, but this is more like the Pantheon in Rome.  It's more open on the inside, too, where we find the man himself.

My, he's even bigger than Lincoln - what did they eat back then?  But he was a larger than life character.  He founded the University of Virginia, wrote the Declaration of Independence and served as the third President of the United States.  During his presidency he made the Louisiana Purchase, buying pretty much all the land between the Mississippi and the Rockies from Napolean.  Napolean.  It would have been impressive if he had bought a bag of peanuts or a used button from Napolean - let alone over two million square kilometres of land.

Once he'd bought the land he sent Lewis and Clark to explore it.  He hoped they would find some living mammoths (that's how little was known about the interior).

He was a great man, though he hasn't always been recognised as such, and I'm glad he has a great building to remember him.

Fish in a dish

Today's post is only tangentially related to the Washington trip (you'll be relieved to hear if all the marble has been getting to you).
Instead it is concerned with something I had taken for granted in New Zealand but sadly cannot here - access to good fish.  Now the fish in America is very good, as long as you are in the right place.  Central Pennsylvania is not really the right place.  When I first arrived here, aware that the trip from New York takes about four hours on a good day, I realised that fish this far inland might be a bit sketchy.  And I was right, though perhaps not for the right reason.

You can get excellent fish here, you just have to know where to go.  After a few forays that ended badly (taste wise...I haven't eaten any properly bad fish here) I've come to realise that it's only worth ordering fish in restaurants if someone I trust has recommended it.  The other night Mrs Walles and I went out to a place where we had been advised the all-you-can-eat haddock and chips was good and it was excellent.  So good that I had two platefuls.  I've also had very good seafood at a Japanese hibachi place.  But then if you were looking for somewhere that was pretty much guaranteed to have fresh fish, a Japanese restaurant would surely be a good bet.

Though fish here is generally lacklustre I don't think this is because of our distance from the coast right now.  It seems more likely that in the time before fast transportation when the coast was even more remote people here just didn't have a lot of experience with cooking and eating fresh seafood.  I think you can see this in the way that a lot of restaurants serve fish - baked and smothered in cheese sauce, the kind of dish that's designed to stifle any flavour of the fish itself.  It's a conservative region and I can easily see this indifference to fish passing from one generation to the next even as access to good seafood improved.

I'm not sure if that's the explanation, but it's still a fact that it's hard to find good seafood around here, so I'm very grateful to the friend who gave us the tip the other night.  I don't have to wait until we visit a coastal area to get my seafood fix anymore (as I did in Washington).  The new place has me hook, line and sinker.

World War II Memorial

The National World War II Memorial is big, impressive and interesting, though for me the least moving of the three war memorials I saw in Washington.

This is America, of course, so the emphasis is on America (hardly surprising).  Yet the Vietnam Memorial is similarly focussed on the US but it immediately struck me with a whole swag of emotions.  Perhaps the difference is that, even though the WWII Memorial is dedicated to those who served in the war, those who fought are not really acknowledged in the architecture.  There was an installation at the back which Mrs Walles and I speculated was intended to convey the scale of losses - but there was nothing to confirm that was what it meant.

 

The memorial is big and round with a nice fountain in the centre.  Around the outer edges there are markers for each state and territory.  On either side there are tall monuments marked "Pacific" and "Atlantic".

There are some nice brasses.  Some had images, like these.

 

Others had little quotes, from President Truman and other figures of the time.

I suppose that for America the Second World War was a kind of coming of age.  It emerged the other side a global superpower, changed in many ways from before the war.  Perhaps this would explain the attitude the memorial seems to convey - not so much a sombre memorial of tragic losses, but more a celebration of a struggle won.  And it would also explain why this memorial has such a prime place on the Washington map, right between the Washington and Lincoln monuments, suggesting it commemorates an event on par with the Revolution and Civil War, two other key turning points in US history.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it isn't your run-of-the-mill war memorial.  Which isn't a bad thing.  It's still a good place to visit and reflect on the events of the war, but as an outsider I was far more moved by the Vietnam and Korean war memorials, of which there will be more in future posts.

And speaking of the Washington map, here's one with the position of the memorial marked.

Lincoln Memorial

The Lincoln Memorial stands at the north end of the Mall.  Here's a view of it from afar, looking from the Washington Monument, past the World War II Memorial.

Now normally there would be a beautiful glassy body of water called the Reflecting Pool in the picture above, but unfortunately they've dug it up to fix its foundations so all we saw was a muddy streak with a few diggers working away. I guess I'll just have to go back at a later date to get the full effect as intended. 

Nevermind, the Greek temple affair that is the Lincoln Memorial was still fantastic and beautiful, as long as you didn't turn around.  Mrs Walles and I made our way there on our first night in D.C. which made for an especially pretty sight which my photography doesn't come close to capturing.

You can just spy the man himself peeking out between two columns.  I returned another day and got this view during daylight.

There are a lot of steps leading up to the building which are hidden by the perspective, though the tiny size of the people in front of the columns hints at the distance from the camera to the top step. Everything about it is oversize and combined with the Greek architecture you feel that this must be a very old building, yet it was only built at the beginning of the twentieth century.  The names of all the states are engraved around the top on the outside.

 

The memorial isn't lit by day but in this photo you can just see the statue of Lincoln staring down towards me (well, actually towards the Washington Monument and Capitol, but it's hard to tell at this distance!).  Here's the man himself, from inside.

He's a big fellow.  I knew Abraham Lincoln was tall, but this is ridiculous!  There is more decoration on the inside.  There are murals up the top of the walls, almost too high to see.  And important speeches are engraved on either side wall.  To his right is the Gettysburg Address.

It's a good thing he kept it short.

I was under the impression (largely from The Simpsons) that people come to the Lincoln Memorial to ask Honest Abe for advice, but all I saw were tourists and Mrs Walles has never heard of such a thing, so it's probably apocryphal.  He looks like he's taking a well-deserved rest (which I think is the intention) so he's probably not keen to dispense advice anyway.  He certainly didn't have an opportunity to rest on his laurels after leading the north to victory in the Civil War.  The poor fellow was assassinated in this very town while the last fighting was still going on further south.

So two presidential memorials down, two to go. Here's the Lincoln Memorial on the map.

The District

How can you be in the United States and yet not in the United States?  Well one way is to visit the capital.  The D.C. in Washington D.C. refers to the District of Columbia, which is the federal territory in which the city lies.  It was originally a square of land ten miles on a side which was ceded by the states of Maryland and Virginia and cut in two by the Potomac River which forms their border.  Eventually the bit on the Virginia side returned to Virginia, so the official capital is all on the Maryland side, but it still isn't part of Maryland or any other state.

One bizarre side effect of this is that those who live in the district have no representation in the federal government.  The district isn't a state, so it isn't allowed senators, and they have only a non-voting delegate in the lower house.  The locals are understandably annoyed by this.  I saw one number plate that played on a well known revolutionary slogan and read "Washington D.C.: Taxation without Representation".

Since relatively few people live in the district (and they aren't represented) there has been little attempt to rectify this anomaly.  I imagine it's a knotty problem and any resolution would require tinkering with the core of the constitution which is not something they do lightly here.  And, to be honest, it seems things could be worse - all you have to do is move over the border to one of the dinkum states and suddenly you are enfranchised again.

Anyway it seems to be a benevolent tyranny to which the city is subject.  It has certainly allowed a pleasant city to spring up in what was once just a swamp.

The relatively small size of the capital also means it is easy to get around.  I was on foot, so pretty much everything I saw was within walking distance of the Washington Monument, which was near the hotel.  That was fine, though, because there is so much right there.  Here's a map I drew which shows nothing to scale but gives you a rough idea of how things are laid out (click for a larger version).

I've heard you can get maps elsewhere on the internet, but who needs precision and good looks when you've got me with a free drawing program?  Each of the little boxes up there represents something of interest that I'll be talking about, and I'll label them as I go along.  We've already had the Washington Monument, which is pretty much in the middle of the long, thin park called the National Mall.  There was a good view of that in yesterday's post.  It's about two miles long.  The Tidal Basin lies on one side of the Mall and beyond that the Potomac River proper with Virginia facing you across the river.  On the other side of the Mall is the majority of the city and, eventually, Maryland.

There is a lot of masonry to get through, but today I thought I would post a nice green shot of Constitution Gardens in the Mall.

Granted it does include the Washington Monument, but that's hard to avoid, and anyway it looks rather good framed by the trees and water.  Just think of it as the world's largest piece of garden art.

Washington Monument

If I had to choose one word to describe Washington D.C. it would be monumental, no part more so than the aptly named Washington Monument.

It is a lot bigger than I thought it would be.  It's an iconic structure, and the tallest in Washington (by law, I believe).  It's almost 170 metres tall, which makes it very visible from around the city.   From the Lincoln Memorial, over a kilometre away...with the Capitol  in the distance...

From across the water at the Jefferson Memorial...

From the opposite side of the inlet of the Potomac River they call the Tidal Basin...

And from the Capitol...

It makes it easy to find for tourists - just look for the tallest thing you can see and head that way.

There is a lift inside that you can take up to an observation deck but unfortunately we couldn't get tickets.  Still we were able to walk right around it, touch it and bask in its magnificence.  There is a line some way up where you can see one kind of stone was used below and another above, invisible from a distance but quite clear close up.  This is because the thing was only half built then abandoned for about twenty years before being finished with slightly different marble.  It is surprising, today, that a monument dedicated to George Washington could be treated with such indifference (it wasn't the first time, either, more on that another day), but all such hesitation is gone and it is now one of the most popular attractions in the country.

The night we visited it was buzzing with tourists, and children were playing sports in the grass all around which gave it a very wholesome festival atmosphere.  As we departed to see what other monumental masonry we could find the Marine Corps Jazz Band started up (who knew there was such a thing - I guess their mission is to put the enemy off their marching pace) and that just added to the holiday feeling.  It wasn't buzzing quite so much when I passed it on other days.  Purely by chance we had visited it at probably the best time possible.

It is very impressive and all the more so because there is nothing around to rival it.  In New York everything is huge, and so you can't appreciate just how huge everything is.  In Washington there are huge buildings but they are laid out sparsely and everything feels much grander.

And the Washington Monument is the grandest of them all.