Modeled after Paris.

It wasn’t until after we’d walked past the mall that a friend we were having dinner with told us that DC was modeled after Paris. I had just remarked to Will and Michaela on our way to the restaurant that the view of the Washington Monument from that particular vantage point reminded me of the area around the Eiffel Tower. The long, grassy mall with the shallow, rectangular reflection pool capped by Paris’s most iconic monument. In DC, the long mall crowned by the Washington Monument.

Anyway, although it’s been UNBEARABLY HOT here the past two days (this morning at not quite 9.30, Michaela and I were both dripping with sweat while visiting the Lincoln Memorial; it was like being locked in the sauna at the downtown Y), I find DC to be a beautiful, interesting, architectural city. I think I’m going to like living here, although missing many things about Seattle at the same time.

The city has a European feel to it in a lot of ways. There are brownstones and very old colonial townhouses par tout, and I’ve also found neighborhoods that remind me a lot of different parts of San Francisco. Par example, Adams-Morgan inspires visions of Haight-Ashbury. And Georgetown kinda reminds me of North Beach. Anyway, I’ll post pictures of our visit soon. I left my digital SLR at home, taking lots of photos with my Holga instead.

‘Til then, here’s a preliminary design sketch of the Holocaust Museum, by architect James Ingo Freed. This was our first exploration when we got here. I could only take in half the museum that day. It was too much. I did absorb enough of the first half, though, to be amazed at how much more similar than not Bush, Cheney, Condi + Co. are to that fascist of all fascists, the diabolic Adolf Hitler. Anyway, I’ll go again to finish when we’re here for good.

Ciao.