DC: Days 9-14

Day 9

DC bound. We hurry out of the hostel and I make a beeline straight for the trusty l’ortiz grocery, home of one of the two Americans I haven’t instantly loathed so far because he let me off for not having enough change one time. The others I lump together as one person since I can’t remember how many of them there were (although I only spoke to the 2 girls really) but were the group of kids we met in Washington Square, purely on the basis that they’ve been the only ones to offer pleasant conversation and interest in us without expectation of something return or some ulterior motive, be it monetary, charity-related, tip-related or religious.

Bowering and Ross head to the payphones to confirm the DC booking after god knows how many quarters and god knows how many tries we actually manage to confirm the booking and head off for the bus. The ride is actually none too unpleasant due to MEGA LEG ROOM and the fact that, at about 4 hours, it’s super short compared to the gruelling, stuffy bus-fests we’ve endured so far.

We disembark and mill aimlessly until we finally get our bearings and resolutely ignore the persistent honk of the taxi who dogs us persistently like a vulture over our vulnerable tourist corpses. Like just about every American we see, his eyes light up with dollar signs at the sight of us. We actually realise from the map in my America guide book that the hostel is probably within walking distance. We hazard a trial walk to a given street to gauge the distance. Although the heat is ridiculously, well, HOT, we power on and find it shouldn’t take all too long despite the punishing temperature. Unless we’re prematurely gunned down by the scores of grimacing, arse-faced gangsta wannabees strutting past us or the mechanics/car thieves ‘working on’ an obviously freshly-pinched truck that is.

We finally arrive at the hallowed HI-DC with the benefit of an actual reservation this time to prevent unsuccessful relations with the dead-eyed, gum-chewing counter monkey. At once my expectations were confirmed, namely that it pisses on the other hostels from a particularly great height. I’m shocked by the actual competence, friendliness and knowledge of the chirpy, pregnant white girl who serves us (political correctness note: I found this unusual only based on our experiences thus far, which showed me an essentially feudal America in which the lower level cleaning jobs are occupied by the non-English speaking Hispanic/Mexican women and the other bog standard-level admin and till jobs almost exclusively occupied by black people), having been used to the aforementioned ignorant disinterest and borderline hostility of the plethora of waddling frown-jockeys so far. Anyway, after a short guide to the city and a free map from Erica (the girl serving us) we goggle briefly at the actually useful facilities it boasts (laundry for one! Booya!) as well as a daily $1 breakfast. We find our way to our rooms and comfortably collapse. We’re here and the first of our eight lives is over. Here comes the second.

Day 10

Still full of last night’s Chinese we rouse ourselves as best we can to take advantage of the super cheap breakfast for a dollar. Once we arrive we notice the dinosaur-like big mama who acts as some kind of breakfast sentry who appears to be programmed primarily to stamp about angrily like a caged, demented elephant in her own tiny kingdom, ruling it with an iron fist as she ruthlessly reprimands those who stray from the strict rules, intermittently bleating ‘no milk for de SIRIYUH!’ After being practically rapped on the knuckles and smacked on the bottom for daring to go for seconds, I ask her with a straight face if she has any milk for the cereal.
She is not pleased.

Today’s itinerary consists of the real meat and potatoes of Washington DC – apart from widespread poverty and scores of nightly murders that is – the White House!

Again, it’s blisteringly hot, the fact that this along with New York should by rights be the coldest of the cities we’re visiting fills me with little hope, especially as I recall the hostel sign measuring the temperature at 95 degrees Fahrenheit.

Finding a monument is no huge task, since they all reside within the four-mile stretch of the national mall, so we start from one end logically and head for the Lincoln memorial at the other end. On our way we pass by the national monument, which to me just looks like a big rock spike. Each to their own however; I still think it looks shit though. The real attraction , though, is the swaying figure in the distance who, upon closer inspection, appears to be a pleasantly delirious tramp. Facing away from the path – and thus looking like he’s serenading the empty patch of grass in front of him – he burbles some kind of advertising jingle about little fishies in a Louis Armstong-esque slurred baritone.

We then walk through the war memorials and, inevitably, our English pride recoils at the depiction of what appears to be an entire world war fought and won by a grinning Uncle Sam alone. I secretly beg for some smarmy American to speak up against our overly-vocal denunciations, I swear he wouldn’t get any further than ‘uh hey man , we saved your ass in… *gurgle*’. The Lincoln memorial is suitably grandiose and all that but it fails to really excite me somehow, and I can’t help but feel a little bored.
As we come out the steadily-encroaching clouds finally do what they’ve been threatening to do all day and chuck it the fuck down. I have a feeling that the American weather hasn’t yet heard of the charming British custom of spitting; it either pisses it down like a high pressure hose for hours on end or scorches the fuck out of everything living. They even have supersize me weather over here. We all huddle under the protection of the big Lincoln memorial and, thanks to an inspired flash by Ross, pass the time trying to hook various parts of Mike’s anatomy with his umbrella handle, even inventing an elaborate points system to go with it.

When it clears up we head to the White House which we see from quite a distance. We head round the back to see if they do tours. Against the rock-solid evidence that is Beavis and Butthead Do America though, it appears they don’t. We interest ourselves with the snaggle-toothed and quite obviously bewigged (it looks like a fucking piece of polystyrene packaging spraypainted grey) ‘Concepcion’ who sits opposite the White House next to numerous anti-war, anti-nuke placards and a sign declaring her 24 year long vigil. The bomb-focused material on the stand is a little 60s in its lack of addressing issues beyond ‘the bomb’ but the points put across nevertheless make sense. A Japanese tour guide moves his group with military efficiency as they clamour round for a snap with the local crazy. I notice how her fevered rabbitting about nuclear conspiracies is ignored almost entirely by him, concerned as he is only with getting a group shot with the freak in the most precise and efficient manner possible.
On a nearby bench we regale ourselves with tales of Gareth Butron and hand-drawn cartoons of Robert Young. I chase a black squirrel round a tree singing ‘in the night, in my dreams’ at it. I don’t think it much appreciated being relentlessly pursued to the sound of acapella 90s techno-pop.

After retiring to home camp, sprucing up and then heading back out, we opt for a pre-Simpsons meal at the delightfully named Fuddrucker’s. Yet again we’re served by an all-star cast of scowling, inept, misery-jockeys. Unsurprisingly, just about all of our orders are wrong, and Bowering’s medium burger is so rare it practically moos. In front of us an Abraham Lincoln lookalike (and no I’m not even joking, he literally had the fake beard and stovepipe hat) seems to be on a date with some woman. Clearly they must both be complete freaks considering the fact that a) they thought this would be a good place to go for a romantic dinner, and b) she seems inordinately turned on by the prospect of sharing a greasy burger with some bloke who’s dressed up like a dead president. He laps it right up though, graciously giving out the odd autograph, like dressing up like Lincoln means he can also borrow his fame and achievements along with the fake beard. The fact that I’m not dressed up as someone who abolished slavery seems to him grounds for a condescending glance. Smug, mental bastard. We wolf our meals down and head for the cinema.

Once there I again deliberate agonisingly over whether to get a drink. I don’t. I then agonise over this continually for the entire duration of the film. The film itself is really good, although rendered somewhat cringeworthy by the borderline-retarded, morbidly obese black walrus who sits (and I use the term loosely, I would say she if anything) and apparently thinks she’s actually just watching it all through a window. Excerpt:

(Homer opens the shed door, passes by the jetpack to instead select a tube of glue)
Thick Cow- ‘Whut tha fuck?! Homah git da fuckin’ jet payk! Whut the?! Oh my gawd! Homah git de jeet payk! No dats de glue! Not de glue!’

(Maggie smashes bottle in hand as monkey advances threateningly)
Moron – ‘AW YEAH, DATS IT MAGGIE! GIT DE MUNKEY! OHHH CHU GET DE MUNKEY! CUT IM UP GOOD! OH LAWD!’ As she guffaws like a drugged half-wit on laughing gas. Well maybe not so much LIKE, more WAS.
I despair for some people, I really do.

Day 10

Today a somewhat late rise finds only me and Mike heading for the breakfast gauntlet as Ross and Bowering sleep in, invulnerable to my smack-on-the-head wakeup attempts. What greets us upon arrival to the breakfast area shocks us to our very cores. In comparison to what now blocks out the sun in front of us, yesterday’s breakfast beast seems like some deliciously happy fairy, flitting between the toast humming Disney tunes. The stamping, grimacing black rhino that presents itself to us instead would probably be easiest to describe as an african-american Miss Trunchbull, albeit without the ability to speak or dress properly. Ok, now add a dirty hairnet covering the scraped back afro bun and a twitching vein on the side of her head, beady, twitchy piggy eyes and something like an industrial lorry tarpaulin adapted roughly to the role of apron and you have it. It’s clear her reign of terror is absolute as each breakfaster meekly shuffles along with their heads down like its dinnertime at Auschwitz. Inevitably, someone makes a minor mistake of sorts to be met by the shuffling bitch of death with brutal and merciless retribution. The innocent mistake of taking a muffin before it’d been properly displayed – and doing so with his hands no less – causes great gouts of steam to just about blow out of her ears as she barrels toward him with pure, disgruntled, angry bitch fury:

Dinnerbeast: Hey! Chu” Hey what chu doin’ theya? HUH? WHUT?

Victim: Uh I Uh, I just uh…

Dinnerbeast: Oh my…. Get cho hands outta there! My God… what chu thinkin’ stickin’ cho big ol’ DURTY haynds awl in ma box huh?? Chu got no BIZNIZ in mah box! Dat mah box okay! MY BOX! Only I can go in deyre! Chu unnerstan’ bwoy? Huh? HUH?

Victim: (cowers) please, I’m sorry, I …. NO PLEASE! NO I… NOOOOOOO!

Today’s destination is the national Air and Space museum, again we receive an airport style super thorough search which stops just short of him pulling on the trust latex glove and going for the ‘deluxe’ search.
The museum itself is pretty damn thorough to be fair, covering the bases from lunar modules to the Wright brothers’ plane. Inevitably – ok and partly because of my need to compulsively read everything put in front of me – we get split up and me and Mike literally search high and low for the others. After looking absolutely everywhere I follow a Ross-based hunch and find them in the resident overpriced McDonalds.
Nely reformed, in the big bang section we find the local freak reading the entrie exhibit to his camcorder. As a poor innocent bystander wnaders past they’re practically kidnapped by the crazed idiot, explaining that it’s ‘her’ (his wife I presume, from her looks of shame and thinly-veiled loathing of him) dad who invented the thing and it’s his exhibit, telling him through the camera that someone is looking at his exhibit. I et he hates his son in law.
As it closes I scramble to the toilets for a last-minute piss, but in a cunning trick they’ve reversed all the escalators to make them go down and for some ridiculous reason there’s two women’s toilets downstairs but no men’s; clearly the museum was designed by some sadistic Germaine Greer-esque militant feminist.

We sit on the bench in the mall and decide against going back to the hostel before tea. We head back to good old Chinatown for tea, Peking duck aplenty, although everyone’s just about eaten theirs by the time mine comes. Mike has a pleasant encounter with the hot sauce in the meantime.
On the way back we re-realise how bad the begging problem is in DC/ It seems they fall into broadly 3 categories:

1. The plain old, looks-miserable-next-to-their-cup variety, the sort we’re generally familiar with in Hull. Your common or garden tramp.

2. The more vocal equivalent of type 1. They’ll generally shake their cup and ask for change from their begging spot or actively solicit strangers or vulnerable looking tourists (i.e.- us) with a ‘chu got a dollah mistah?’

3. The Trojan horses of the begging game. They’ll enter your zone of trust with some fawning bullshit such as ‘Oh you guys da shit man! Chu guys all Swedish/in a band/like soccer/massage parlours?’ After the extended bullshit tirade they whip out the punchline, like they just happened to need it that day: ‘Oh by they way, er… chu guys got a dollah?’


Day 12

Again just me and Mike hit the breakfast challenge. Super Robo Dinnerbeast is again present, as irritable and wrathful as ever. Highlights include being greeted by a ‘suh where cho TIKKIT?!’ which I’m sure she decides to ask on the spot just to piss me off. Anyway I’m last to get my breakfast and give her the ticket; I briefly put down my tray and go back for coffee. I’m then greeted again by the scowling, stony black surface of her craggy features demanding ‘yo tikkit’ no later than 5 seconds after I gave her it. Realising I’ve managed to foil her infernal ploy, she makes a sudden accusatory u-turn, out of nowhere pointing the finger that, ‘bud I jus’ saw chu git sum dem MUFFINZ!’ Her muffin obsession, it seems, has driven her to the extent of delusional paranoia, since I hold only one measly bagel intended for toasting. She is, as Ross would say, off her tits. Or, as Tom would say, tapped as a twat.
After hitting McDonald’s for lunch and being accosted outside the toilet by a seemingly innocuous black businessman in tha name o’ tha LAWD (which now makes it a rate of 100% for people on the street being nice to me for an ulterior motive) we head down to the capitol. The walk is fairly casual and once there we laze about in standard fashion, i.e. me writing/reading and Mike falling asleep. In the midst of this we find a band setting up which, with a prompt tooting of horns and bong of bass, soon strikes up th ebig band jazz tunes of ‘Airmen of Note’. They’re damn good to be fair. Mesmerised by the drummer’s truly badass jazz beats I move further toward the front. Eventually Ross comes over to sit with me and Mike. this isn’t because of any sudden interest in the band, however, but to tell us, unsurprisingly, that he wants to go get something to eat. Eventually, he coaxes me away on the assurance that there won’t be a drum solo. On this occasion, I trust Ross’s sudden and surprisingly in-depth knowledge of military jazz band procedures for some reason. Then as we’re about half a mile off I hear it: the distant machinegun clatter of rimshots and hi-hat hits that constitute one bonafide drum solo.
We head earnestly toward the pizza place we earmarked earlier only to find the kitchen shut at 9. Cursing, we head for the nearest not-ridiculously priced restaurant, which happens to be an Indian.

Day 13

Due to the steady build-up of knackeredness of the last few days, today we all sleep in and miss the delights of breakfast.
First item on the agenda is Greyhound tickets. The trip there, even with only small bags, is little short of exhausting. Upon arrival, we’re delighted to find the service to be on exactly the same level of competence, professionalism, intelligence and politeness as the rest of America’s service sector employees, i.e. – fucking zero. The gormless bitch clearly went to same training class as the dickhead in Madison Square Gardens who sold me two tours when she finally tunes into reality from dozy bitch fm, looking us over and summarising: ‘so dat’s five tikkits? Fo today?’ I despair. I really do.
We head back the way we came, obtaining a hot dog combo meal from one of the omnipresent Sabrett vendors. He makes it into my prestigious list of people I don’t instantly loathe by his rare utilisation of ‘thank you’.
Somewhat lost for things to do on the way back I propose putting into action my long-suppressed plan of going to the Dupont Circle. After some uncertainty about the metrobus schedule, we’re soon packed into the tinbox of dreams alongside its usual coterie of killers, rapists and old people. Due to heading outside of our familiar district I painstakingly plot our route on the fly on our USA book whilst glancing at the signs. Ross decides as we come near to our destination to approach the robotic negro coachman to actually find out where we get off.
To be honest, I think the lonely planet guide was perhaps being a bit generous in its description. Dupont circle – well, what we see of it – isn’t, at first glance, the veritable Park Lane it describes it as, full of tweeting birds or poets with cashmere sweaters draped around their shoulders musing in the shade of a tree. We head to Kramerbooks which is, to be honest, the main reason for the visit. My youthful fantasies of a super-cheap indie bookstore brimming with rare books aren’t wholly fulfilled though I must admit. There’s a café there, and the shelves are positively brimming with pretentious literati on their lunch hours, but the prices are basically rrp – well, are – and I snag a Wodehouse and a Chesterton, Mike bags an Ishiguro, enthused by the book he did for Cyborgs and Clones and Ross plumps for the solid meat of Stephen King. Outside we sprawl out on the grass in what I presume is the actual circle part of Dupont circle. I realise that the idea of reading on the grass under a tree is, in fact, a lot better than actually reading on the grass under a tree. Unable to keep my concentration due to ants infesting my being and random prickly, spherical shit in the grass I roll about restlessly. The tree itself is also a wholesale failure at its only purpose: giving me shade. Meanwhile, Ross appears to be being sold drugs by a gang of whacked-out, hoodie-wearing smackheads with dilated pupils.
On the night we finally hit that pizza place , in the hostel, prepare at last for the south-bound trek.

Day 14

This morning we realise that, largely, our preparation falls into the popular category of ‘can’t be arsed’ as we brace ourselves for a parting meal with breakfast beast. Highlights include: Chinese girl reluctantly tiptoeing up to the coffee machine, meekly motioning towards it when the black moon orbits, rounding on her with an enraged ‘WHAT CHU WAN’!?’, and also Ross being absolutely bollocked for not having a ticket even though he’d already given her it.
Today most of our time is spent whiling away the hours. Me and Ross tramp out in the heat in search of snacks and Bowering, like the last few days, sits down awaiting a response from the traditionally incompetent police. Despite the admittedly presumptuous pointing of fingers at the dorm-mate I secretly nicknamed Abdul La Fontaine (for his combined Franco-Indianness, conversing so chummily with the other two gallic bumboys who shared a bunk in the dorm while erstwhilely ignoring us entirely) the consensus appears to lean a little more towards the scampering Latino cleaners who scurry about the place like some kind of Mexican oompa-loompas as being the culprits of the combined ipod and tshirt theft. The policeman actually arrives about 2 hours after DCPD said he would (which, by police standards, actually makes him early) and acts as though he’s looking at some kind of depraved crack-house as he eyes me up and down with evident disgust as I placidly eat my bright green ice-lolly when he suddenly yells ‘YOU CALL THE POLICE?!’ Once inside he isn’t ashamed to say he doesn’t know what the hell the place is (although he stops short of admitting he doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing, which he clearly doesn’t) and squints suspiciously like it’s some kind of satanic cult headquarters.
We embark for the 5 pm bus at about 3, and arrive there after a pained and sweaty journey at roughly 4, collapsing in a pile of sweaty t-shirts and overloaded luggage. Learning from our previous mistakes I shift my bag into an altogether less ambiguous position, namely right in front of the gates to appropriately give off that ‘fuck right off mate, I was there first’ message.
We board nearly first in line and are slightly disappointed at the lack of MEGA LEGROOM this time. Like long distance runners, we try our best to pace ourselves for the journey, although we pass through Virginia I find it increasingly hard not to instantly fall asleep just due to the fact that I’m on a bus.
About 5 hours in we arrive in Charlottesville and, unlike the other stops we actually have to get off and take our bags. I didn’t actually realise this and begrudgingly haul off the massive cowsack and drag it into the dingy, small-town Greyhound stop at about 10pm. The stop is scheduled for about an hour and, after briefly marvelling at the price plummet of vending machine cans compared to those high flyer machines in DC/NY, we stand, like the scraggy sleep-deprived sheep we are, mill about outside( the stop is so small it closes at 10pm) and await the bus. Soon it comes and, with a sigh, we get ready for the familiar rigmarole of boarding and throwing the bags in the hold. But wait. Something is amiss. Nobody is getting off the bus. Intently as I look, all I see are their fat, snug, contented faces as they’re sprawled out snoring, guffawing, stuffing their faces or doing both, spraying cheetos all over the seats in front. The driver comes out and the crowd reacts with confusion as the clearly inept woman driver flails her arms and clearly tries her utmost to dodge any type of responsibility for anything. After Ross enquires, however, it turns out there’s another bus coming soon. That’s ok then, we just got mixed up. All is well. The other bus finally arrives, pleasingly bigger and it appears to be – most importantly – empty. Upon closer inspection, however, they’re just blacked-out windows. Soon after realising this, the bus stops and the lights flick on, revealing the same sickening panorama of obese tramps who populate the Greyhound lines. It’s ok though, because surely they’re just about to get off. They don’t. Agitation increases markedly. As the driver emerges I groan at what’s surely to come. Clearly cut from exactly the same cloth as the mindless ‘huh?’ merchants serving me across the continent so far, I see her stupid braided hair and utter a silent sob of despair. Abandon all hope ye who enter here. She attempts to liaise with her flock, although surely she should know how many – in this case NONE, lucky us – are getting off. She moves slowly from the stance of ‘I dunt know nuthin’ bout nuthin’ mista’ to the not-too-distant ‘hey ah jus’ do wha I’m tol’, can’ts do nuthins fo ya’ (America’s answer to ‘computer sayas no’ girl) and – bless her warm, selfless, heart – makes her best attempt to climb back into the cab and leave all us 20 satisfied customers with a ‘shit happens’ shrug. We basically shit ourselves and consider our options. Thanks to some bizarre turn of fate, our recently departed English dorm-mate from DC actually steps off and tells us there’s actually a hostel 8 miles from here and he might be able to get us a lift there. Thing is, we need to get to that comfort inn in Nashville or else we lose all we’ve put down on it. Thankfully the previously irritating boisterousness of one of the crowd now becomes useful as he actively engages the feckless, dead-eyed cow and manages to convince her that we won’t sue her for slightly banging our heads if she lets us sit in the aisle. We file in past the gauntlet of chubby, sweaty limbs and sit down. I cannot believe that we are actually doing this. I go for the clutch-knees-to-chest-and-pretend-I’m-not-really-stuck-in-a-bus-aisle-for-potentially-ten-hours position. Sleep is pretty much impossible though, so I converse with a fellow prisoner behind me who’s Texas bound. He is – or was – an art student and is a fan of comic books as well as, it seems, the sound of his own voice, which is something of an irritation since he’s packing some seriously chronic halitosis. We have a fairly good conversation about Preacher though. After what seems like a trillion agonising lifetimes, some people actually get off at the next stop and me and Mike, being the last in and therefore first in the aisle chain gang run greedily to the first empty seats. There are a few more stops after in which – when we open our bleary eyes to take in the freakish Southern mutants that populate the Tennessee truck stops – we’re pointlessly ushered off the bus for it to refuel or something because she crack under pressure and has a PMT hissy fit, making us get out so she can remember what side the petrol cap is on.