After a nice long shower, a fine cigar, and a nice money burning, we stopped in at the Pavilion Café, where Jessie dined on a croissant garnished with the blood of a large Caribbean woman.
We were rather unhappy to learn that the Smithsonian Museum of American History was closed for renovation until November. Therefore, I didn't get to see the Seinfeld puffy shirt, Evel Knievels' motorcycle, or Kermit the Frog's corpse.
Instead, we headed next door to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, where they have various dinosaur bones (or, more appropriately, what dinosaur bones would have looked like if dinosaurs actually existed) and a bunch of sedated animals placed in various supposedly natural poses:
A tiger falling from a pull-up bar (no opposable thumbs).
A pangolin just … hanging … out. Ah-thank you!
A fennec fox coked out of its mind and freaking out.
An orangutan conquering shit. I could respect that.
A prairie dog singing "All I Want for Christmas Is You," which is weird because they're usually overtly atheist.
A koala transmitting gonorrhea to a glass case. It's their curse, you know.
A triceratops rocking out with a contemporaneous human.
I pretended to get eaten by a T-Rex, while Jessie pretended to be happy elephant poop.
Next, we went to the National Gallery, first starting in the West Building, which has the older collection. Again, the Italian Prime Minister was there.
After looking at some old art that looked like real stuff, we went to the East Building to look at crazy-ass modern shit. The East Building was designed by the same dude who designed the IU Art Museum and apparently some other shit too. Jessie posed for a glamour shot in front of the East Building and then for several introspective shots on the inside that really came to life through my creative vision, inspired by Jessie repeatedly shouting, "Look at that big fucking mobile!"
After we got the art out of Jessie's system, it was my turn to choose a museum, so I went with the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. It was pretty cool because it has rockets and space ships and planes and astronaut ice cream, which I bought because I'm five.
Perhaps coolest of all, though, are the simulators. You can choose to either go on a simulator ride, which has four options (WWII plane, F-18, and a couple space-related options). Or, for a dollar more, you and a wife can go on an interactive F-4 Phantom II fighter pilot mission, pretending for six minutes that you are a fighter pilot and gunner, respectively, and controlling all the action. You are required to remove everything from your pockets because, as explained by posters and workers, the simulator does 360-degree barrel rolls. Somehow this did not signal to Jessie that the simulator does 360-degree barrel rolls, as she was more than surprised when we flipped upside down the first time. I cackled like a hyena for most of the flight. My piloting skills were surprisingly fresh, given that I have not flown a simulated plane since Top Gun, the Nintendo game. Even more of a surprise was Jester's gunning. Despite her constant threats of vomiting, she managed six kills. I'm not sure I've ever been more proud of her. She felt sick for several hours.
After that, we headed to the Metro and up to Foggy Bottom. Damn that's fun to say.
Our walking in the morning and early afternoon was fairly weak: only about 1.5 miles.
Upon our arrival at the Foggy Bottom/GWU Metro stop, we headed up Pennsylvania Avenue to M Street, which is the main drag that goes through Georgetown. There are a wide array of stores and restaurants on M Street and Wisconsin Ave., if you're into buying food and goods.
We were both in the mood for pizza (Midwest withdrawal I suppose), and we found a place to cure our shakes. It's called Pizzeria Paradiso, which is also a Birreria, which is not to be confused with "Beerarrhea," an condition that has been known to afflict Dan Weeser*, where excessive amounts of alcohol completely prevent him from controlling how many words spew forth from his mouth. Anyway, Paradiso was excellent. Great pizza. Great beer selection. It gave us the stomach and the fortitude for our next stop.The entire reason I wanted to go to DC was to make a pilgrimage to the Exorcist steps. Some dude was doing pull-ups like a man possessed at the bottom of the stairs. We traversed up the steps to look at the house.
Jessie started acting weird, screaming over and over again "High Five! High Ten! Stop! Stop! " and then screaming incoherently and rather gutturally.
A man on a bike stopped after we took some pictures of the house. He was not a Catholic priest, but had been around for the filming of the movie (and apparently was an extra). He explained that a false wing was added to the house, so that the window from whence Father Karras was thrown would back up against the now-infamous steps. As you can see from this photo, behind that BMW is where the false wing had been added.
Sensing that this man may have simply read the IMDB trivia page about the film, Jessie became indignant and told the man that "[his] mother sucks cocks in hell." Then she spit up the split pea soup she had for lunch all over the man, and then, for some reason, she threw me down the steps and took a picture, turned the man into a pumpkin and threw him down the stairs.
Interestingly, the Exorcist house is across the street from The Tombs, which served as the bar in Brat Pack stalwart St. Elmo's Fire.
Being a huge John Parr fan (although, admittedly, having never seen the film), I could barely contain myself. In fact, I was on such a high that I convinced Jessie that we needed to be "men in motion" and that we were to walk from Georgetown to the Vietnam Memorial.On our way over there, we passed the home of a Tory, soon after alerting the local cobbler, who serves as a militiaman.
We also passed the Watergate Hotel, which I conquered, but did not break and/or enter.
We stopped at the Lincoln Memorial for a quick piss and picture of the Washington Monument again. To the right of the Monument, you will see one of Earth's moons.
Eventually, we got to the Vietnam Memorial, which I suggest visiting if you're in town. As I'm sure you know, it is two walls that come to a point, each covered with the etched names of American soldiers who died Vietnam, with bronze statues of a couple soldiers looking at the wall from about 50 yards away. People leave letters, flowers, and memorials. It's pretty depressing.
After that, we walked through some of the parks in the Mall. There were ponds, a non-depressed duck, and a squirrel who was, in fact, the devil incarnate.
On the way to the Metro, we passed in front of the White House and Old Executive Building from afar.
We managed to walk another five miles in the afternoon.
We had no plans Sunday night, and we were more tired than the Mac vs. PC ad campaign, so we just stayed in and watched some True Blood.Rather than waste your time talking with a separate post about Monday, rest assured, we flew home. Special thanks to Thor Svensen, our travel agent, for setting up the whole trip.
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