This morning we made up for yesterday’s little food with a nice breakfast of pancakes; two guys prepared it for us; these are not only the cooks but they have to make sure that everyone takes only four pancakes (actually if you leave us self-managed… these pancakes disappear in a heartbeat!)
I would like to chat with others and get acquainted but people with us do not seem to be in a sociable mood and so I let it go.
We leave to continue our exploration of the National Mall walking through the streets of the city, initially letting ourselves be carried away by the eyes, then heading back to the façade of the White House.
There are quite a few carabattole vendors, but being early in the morning they are opening and we have several things to do so we can’t wait, too bad.
Wandering around Chinatown
We pass by large buildings, Christmas decorations and small stone churches that sprout here and there; then I see from a distance the fantastic Torii portal of China Town.
Wonderful.
The portal is huge and we then discovered that in every city that has the Chinese quarter there are these portals that delimit it.
At the main intersection of the neighborhood there are also pedestrian crossings decorated with the animals of the Chinese horoscope, and the street lamps have the shape of lanterns.
On the way we cross a homeless woman who moves with a trolley; until now we have not seen many but we would have had the opportunity, unfortunately, to see many.
With a few detours, we arrive again at the White House, also this time seen from afar but oh well.
I checked many times if it was possible to visit it at the entrance but I didn’t find anything about it.
If you have good news such as: special dates during which you can visit it, let me know in the comments!
The Bird Accident and the Lincoln Memorial (back to the National Mall)
The avian disaster… I saw this huge flock of ducks all intent on feeding quietly in the meadow; then I say to Matthew: now I frighten them and make them fly.
I approach but the geese simply shy away until out of the corner of my eye I see Matthew surrounding them from another direction, taking a walk and … bamm… they all start in flight, but they are many …. it was very funny even if after a while I was terrified that someone would come to us to say something.
Nothing happened, but I did not calm down; it occurred to me where they could have gone and if maybe they had created problems at the nearby airport, but nothing, thank goodness.
Our destination is the Lincoln Memorial and we get there by passing first by other various memorials; like that of Vietnam which is really impressive; you suddenly find yourself between these two huge and reflective black walls full of very small written names.
It strikes and leads you to reflect, this war that in Italy we do not even study, is it worth the price of blood paid by this country?
I think that no war is worth the cost of human lives that you pay; in a just world, problems are tried to be solved by talking, at most by protesting; but never throwing human lives into hell.
I try to shake off these dark feelings, even though here at the National Mall it’s hard to do that.
This part of the park is very dense with memorials and most of them are of wars.
Luckily there is also one dedicated to Albert Einstein, and somehow eating something in front of a giant Einstein lifts my spirits.
It is quite fresh so taking a nice hot drink seems to me an excellent solution; a stone’s throw from Einstein there is a shack that also sells souvenirs and offers hot chocolate takeaways.
We find a beautiful little starling that swings on a chain observing the crumbs, it is the first time I see one from so close!
Lincoln’s memorial is truly beautiful, with its inscription “I have a dream” in the place where Martin Luther King gave his famous speech.
I stood right there and looked up at the Reflecting Pool trying to imagine that immense tide of people all intent on listening to words of peace; hope for a better future that unfortunately has not yet been achieved in America, and perhaps nowhere else.
The stone Lincoln is huge and on the sides of the room are parts of his most important speeches (the Gettysburg Address and the 2nd inaugural address), difficult to translate as they are written small enough to be on such monumental walls.
The statue of Lincoln dates back to 1920 and is located inside a monumental temple with Doric features; this contrasts with the typically Roman appearance of the other buildings on the National Mall.
The 36 columns envisaged in the project were imagined as a symbol of the same number of states that made up the USA at the death of Lincoln and their names were carved in the entablature; while the names of the 48 states that were part of the union at the time of completion of the work are engraved on the external walls.
The foundation stone was laid on Lincoln’s birthday, February 12, 1914.
Memorials
Continuing a sort of imaginary counterclockwise tour we find ourselves in front of the Korean War Memorial with its bronze soldiers who walk laboriously in the quagmire in the rain.
History tips: this war was fought from 1950 to 1953 and the trigger was the invasion of South Korea (an ally of the United States) by North Korea.
This conflict led to the dismissal of President Truman, the risk of nuclear war (as the American general MacArthur wanted to drop atomic bombs on China and Korea) and 2,800,000 dead, wounded and missing (half of them civilians).
The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial impressed Matthew with the phrase engraved on the rock from which the preacher’s body seems to come out: “Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope.
And it is precisely from the “mountain of despair” that you pass to reach the “stone of hope”, where Dr.King.
This memorial is the first, in Washington D.C. to honor a black man.
Around the statue is the Inscription Wall, a wall on which are quotes from King’s speeches about his four basic principles: justice, democracy, hope, and love.
A certain has been made, the destination is obligatory, the thousand million food trucks that occupy the crossroads of the Mall where we can get food; and we found it, a tasty sandwich that unfortunately has an ultra-spicy sauce and that Matteo ate to save my palate from death in the underworld.
On the other hand, he took a Doctor Pepper, his American drug!
The Japanese Garden and the Museum of African Art
Unfortunately the Japanese garden is not at its splendor given the time of year, so we slipped into the Museum of African Art, with all the masks so finely decorated with beads inserted one by one.
There is also a giant uroboron made with gasoline tanks that people use to transport what little water they find home.
This museum is largely underground and is connected with that of Asian art to which we took a peek admiring some ancient Tibetan bells; but we don’t have much time anymore so reluctantly we went out to go back to the station.
On the way back I wanted to go to another memorial but we did not find it; we ended up in the only way that I must admit made me a little uncomfortable.
There were a few apparently poor guys who squared us and it did not seem appropriate to pass by there since the area was not very crowded.
A black man with completely torn jeans and some bandage asking to turn on passed by, I gave him the lighter and then he asked for money but at that point we had understood the antiphon and we had already moved away.
In the end after a long look at the Capitol with the sun now setting we returned to the station to wait for our bus; not without counting a huge amount of delicious and soft squirrels.
The return was a black hole, I fell asleep and enjoyed it the whole trip; obviously with the stop pee in the chemical toilet of the bus, clean, except for the small defect that tossed a mess but fortunately the handle to hold helped me.
Hello hello Washington!
If you do not know where we started and where we will end, click below!
