Jen's Column / Washington D.C.

Hey all! Just took a great trip to Washington D.C. with my mom. Here's the column I wrote about it...


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My mom and I took a trip to Washington D.C. last week. I was excited to visit our national capitol for the first time — but even more excited to spend a few uninterrupted days with my mom.

We travel well together — basically because she, like me, is OK flying by the seat of her pants a bit. When it comes to travel, I like to just see where the day takes me. Oddly enough, the days never took us to some of the sites you'd expect to see in D.C.

For instance, we didn't explore the White House. Didn't even make it as far as the front lawn. As it turns out, you need to arrange White House tours months in advance so official-looking people can run background checks. We also didn't tour the capitol building — though we did stand out front and effusively proclaim how big it was. And we didn't go to the top of the Washington Monument. You have to get up early and wait in line for those tickets and, well, we preferred to sleep in. (We were on vacation, people.)

We did visit the Lincoln Memorial — a behemoth of a building that shocked me with its size. (The penny doesn’t do it justice.)

And we spent time at the Korean War Veterans Memorial and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. As someone who likes the tangible — who needs to touch and smell things to make sure they're real — these memorials were an impactful testament to the soldiers who fought and died in these wars.

We visited the Library of Congress, where we wandered several floors in confusion before returning to the information table and asking, "Umm… where are the books?" (Turns out the Library of Congress does indeed have rooms full of books. But you can't go in them.)

At Arlington National Cemetery, we watched the changing of the guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier — and were struck by the pomp and ceremony displayed in this age of informality. Stunning.

We saw our founding father's flourished signatures on the Constitution at the National Archives. And at the National Gallery of Art, I became dizzy with reverence standing in a room full of Monets.

When we sought out the Smithsonian Institution, we quickly learned there isn't just one Smithsonian museum — but 17. We hit the Institution's Air & Space Museum (where we saw really cool stuff, like lunar landing modules and Lindberg's Spirit of St. Louis), and the Natural Museum of History where I saw my first 3D IMAX. (I warned my mom that it was going to be scary, but she didn't believe me until that comet came hurtling at our heads....)

After all that, I have to say that what energizes me more than anything about traveling is the people. From the high school teachers from Queens who raved to us about their students at the National Archives to the guy working the subway who came out of his booth when we needed help buying our Metro cards, we met kind, enthusiastic people at every turn.

There was the woman at the Lincoln Memorial who took our picture with my mom's camera and kept asking us to adjust our pose so she'd get it right. The waiter who found us a bus schedule even after we said we'd get one ourselves. The Tourmobile guide who had an exuberant love for his city and a photographic memory. ("Hello ladies! Nice to see you back today!")

When you travel to large cities, people are quick to warn you about the crime or the brusque people you'll meet — but we didn't experience anything like that. I found our nation's capitol to be friendly and accessible. More than any monument or memorial, this is what impressed me most. I'll be happy to return.