Arlington travel notes
Some initial observations
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It is exciting simply to be in America, where the heat means the pine trees really smell of pine, and saying good morning to the breakfast server results in a good humoured conversation, and the birds are so unafraid of pedestrians that you can stand close and watch them quarrel over a bagel or see them hopping and gliding from tree to tree, close enough to watch their head tilt as their colours shift in the sun. We have had good close viewings of a Northern Cardinal and one of those astonishing American robins.
The first British-American difference we noticed was at the airport. At Gatwick, you put a pound in to get a luggage cart, which you later get back. We got three. At Boston you pay $7 per cart ($6 at Reagan). We got two at Boston and one at Reagan.
On our first full day in Arlington, we took three journeys on the Metro and each time someone voluntarily gave up their seat to our obviously exhausted children. This has happened at bus stops too. At Boston airport, there was a respect for mothers and children (young families board first) at security and the gate that simply doesn’t exist in the UK. People are just nicer here. Maybe I am comparing London to a smaller place, but I do think London is grumpy because the British are grumpy. (Yes, I am grumpy.)
Americans want to work. They pick up stray litter. They respond promptly. It is said that the English are good at queueing, but we are good at standing in queues, whereas the Americans keep the queue moving.
In the area of north Arlington we have been staying in, you see more people walking their dogs than pushing a buggy or walking with a child.
Behind the main roads, which are full of cars and businesses and look fairly ugly, there are rows of good-old-fashioned American houses, with white fences and basketball hoops set up in yards. North Adam Street is excellent from start to finish. Hostas seem to grow wild here. Black-eyed Susans are out in huge bright clumps. The lightning is striking and impressive but makes little impression on the locals. Flood warnings are laughed at, and seem to be often wrong.
We asked two armed guards outside the White House and Treasury where we could find a bookshop in D.C. They blanked. Then we stopped a nice looking man: blue suit, glasses, waved salt-and-pepper hair, and a general demeanour of the typical mild-mannered American gentleman. He blanked too. A minute later, he ran back and crossed the street to direct us to Second Story Books at Dupont Circle. He was charming. At Second Story I got two biographies of Jonathan Swift. It’s a very good bookshop.
The transit system is hard to understand at first but the buses are excellent, easy to use, and very regular. Although higher prices on the Metro make it cleaner and less crowded than London (it costs more depending on how far you ride, more so than the London zones as far as I can tell, and the day pass is some $14; children do not ride free, which is an outrage), it is also less intuitive to work out what your journey will cost.
The escalators run so slowly here. Un-American speeds.
Walking around in this humidity is horrible. How did the founding fathers get anything done in their wigs? They founded a country in this weather!? Presumably the weather is why so many Americans drive everywhere. I walked for half an hour during the hottest part of the day and the person I was meeting was shocked that I had done so and intended to do so again. I was grateful to be given a lift by them. This is not the only person who gave or offered me a lift on first meeting.
Presumably Americans are used to adding sales tax in their head. Why the charade? Is this what Burke called scenting tyranny on every breeze? I notice this afresh every time I visit. In general, conversations have been unpolitical. The intensity of American politics has been entirely absent from all my discussions, apart from one taxi driver who ranted about corruption. It is much easier and more rewarding to talk to strangers here, even accounting for my traveller’s advantage.
Three pastries and two cups of coffee set me back some $23 in one place. (And I was expected to tip.) It is quite easy to get a decent salad. But Americans seem to be happy just to eat a large bowl of lettuce. What some American eateries call a chicken sandwich, I call a chicken burger. Graham crackers are not crackers: they are biscuits. The WholeFoods roasted, unsalted, Californian almonds are wonderful. But some two-thirds of what they sell in that store is junk food. It might be organic, with a homely brand, but it is still junk food.
The British love to scorn; the Americans love to smile—, but they can also be brusque. This brusqueness is often in the service of efficiency. One lady in a government office was relatively sharp with me when I was five minutes late (confusing system for poor English traveller), but she then turned out to be proactive and helpful and really solved a problem for me. In Britain, bureaucratic brusqueness is a much more negative signal.
At breakfast in the hotel we befriended a southern lawyer and his son who had interned in Congress. They were smart, delightful company. I was struck by how the son called the father “Sir”, and the father called my son “Sir”, in the friendly manner of eighteenth century British speakers, one of the cultural survivals that we English have lost. We chatted in the roaming manner of fellow travellers—books, history, parenting, local culture, traveling anecdotes, which are the best cereals—and the time fell away in the relaxed nature only an early breakfast in good company can obtain. Contrary to the persistent English stereotype (like those stupid jokes about Oscar Wilde in Four Weddings and a Funeral), Americans are intelligent, curious, interesting people. In America, one thinks in conversation about the subject at hand; in England, people are thinking what other people think of them. I expect my views of these opposing traits to converge over time, but not entirely.
Staying in a hotel room with children is an adventure and a trial. There are moments of high hilarity and moments of screaming irritation. Although they tire more quickly, children are more adaptable and accepting. Sometimes, they sit at the large triple window and watch Arlington the way they watch television. However early we open the blinds, there are cars on the road.
Here are my previous notes about visiting Arlington (another part of town). Here is New York. And Wisconsin.
Nice reflections. Capitol Hill books is also worth checking out. I went there all the time when I was at the Folger Shakespeare Library (it's a short walk) and was glad to find that it's still open on my last visit.
As an American I find all of this quite amusing. Thank you for the relaxing read.