Maggi and Greg wanted to visit the Holocaust Museum, Alex and I preferred to go somewhere else. However before that everyone except Greg set off to further explore the Georgetown area. There are so many large mansions as well as 19th C terraced houses in the area that it is a joy to walk around and look at the homes.
We decided to descend towards the shores of the Potomac. On the way we crossed over the Chesapeake and Ohio canal. I had imagined this as being similar to the Regents Park canal, a few houseboats, people fishing etc. Hugely disappointed when we crossed over the supposed waterway and looked down.
At least we couldn’t see any old supermarket shopping carts lying in the bottom.
We continued our walk down to the riverside to the Georgetown Waterfront Park. A sunny Sunday morning and lots of people wandering along through this area. The river looked fairly polluted with lots of logs and garbage floating along.
In the distance we could see the Kennedy Centre and the Watergate Building. I remember sitting up in bed while at college listening to the 10 o’clock news about the Watergate scandal. In the summer of 1972 I hitched around the US and it shocked me that despite all the controversy about the scoundrel Nixon many people wanted to vote for him. He retained the presidency in the November election. The stupidity of the American electorate continues to this day as we watch Trump strutting his stuff.
In the afternoon Maggi and Greg disappeared to the Holocaust Museum and Alex took the kids to the zoo. I promised to meet them at the zoo. I tried to connect up this travel router in a special way without success and so decided to walk the 2 miles or so to the zoo. As a result I enjoyed a very pleasant walk. First of all I climbed up to R Street in Georgetown, and here the very biggest homes exist. This road runs along the top of the hill and there are great views across the Potomac. I then descended through the woods to Rock Creek which I followed. The path then emerged into a park and then I climbed up for what seemed ages and arrived at the entrance to the zoo.
I called Alex only to find that she and the kids were at the opposite end of the zoo at the bottom of the hill. On the way down I stopped off at the only area without lots of people staring at the contents of the cages. Dedicated to Przewalski’s horse, the two animals in the pen were oblivious to me and all the passing people. According to the sign they are the only living relatives of the original wild horses that roamed the steppes of Asia.
After I met up with Alex we left the zoo almost immediately. I just about caught a glimpse of a tiger oil the Big Cats area.
We left the zoo and climbed back up a different hill. Again a long steady walk and at the top came across the diplomatic area of the city. The main road we proceeded along had embassies on either side. We passed through a park full of young couples I would guess in their early 30’s. I didn’t notice any children running about, just a few push chairs for the very youngest. This predominantly white neighbourhood doesn’t contribute enough to renewing the population according to economists.
We ordered an Uber and met up with Maggi and Greg at Alex’s work colleague Tom’s house. Although the house sits in the North-East district it is not far from the Administrative section of Washington. I didn’t realised he had 3 children aged 6,3, and 3 months. The main room and the adjacent kitchen were a bit of a mess. Tom had invited us for an early supper. He had bought in a series of Ethiopian dishes from a local restaurant. Washington has a fairly large Ethiopian population. Anne, his wife returned 20 minutes after we arrived with the baby and the 3 year old. We all sat around the table and Tom bought out the food. Anne disappeared to look after the baby. We ate and then left. The food tasted good.
Returned home to our BnB and had a quiet night in.