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I had this exchange recently with a fanny pack-bedecked patriarch of a tourist family out on 7th Street (seriously, this isn't embellished):
Man (looking south on 7th, towards the Mall): Excuse me, where is the Smithsonian?
Me: Which one are you looking for?
Man: The Smithsonian Museum.
Me: Well, there isn't really a Smithsonian Museum. There are a number of them. Which one were you interested in?
Man: I don't know. What do they have?
Me: Well, there's about 15 of them. Air and Space is pretty popular, so is the American History museum.
Man: We don't really care which one, but where are they located?
Me: Many of them are around the Mall.
Man: Where's the Mall?
Me: Well, you're pretty much looking at it. Just keep walking south down 7th Street for a few blocks, and you'll get to it.
Man: So, it's that big building down there?
Me: What? No! The NATIONAL Mall, the big park--it's not a buildng.
Man: Oh, yes, right. OK, that's where we'll go then. Thanks.
(Proceeds to turn north with family and walk towards Chinatown.)
I had this exchange recently with a fanny pack-bedecked patriarch of a tourist family out on 7th Street (seriously, this isn't embellished):
Man (looking south on 7th, towards the Mall): Excuse me, where is the Smithsonian?
Me: Which one are you looking for?
Man: The Smithsonian Museum.
Me: Well, there isn't really a Smithsonian Museum. There are a number of them. Which one were you interested in?
Man: I don't know. What do they have?
Me: Well, there's about 15 of them. Air and Space is pretty popular, so is the American History museum.
Man: We don't really care which one, but where are they located?
Me: Many of them are around the Mall.
Man: Where's the Mall?
Me: Well, you're pretty much looking at it. Just keep walking south down 7th Street for a few blocks, and you'll get to it.
Man: So, it's that big building down there?
Me: What? No! The NATIONAL Mall, the big park--it's not a buildng.
Man: Oh, yes, right. OK, that's where we'll go then. Thanks.
(Proceeds to turn north with family and walk towards Chinatown.)
You gotta love it.
Next time, tell them that if they stray even a little from the area between the Capitol and the Monument, then they will be lost forever.
Yes they are the dumbest...the president's speech last night was at the 10th grade level and was criticized as being to difficult for the average citizen to comprehend.
They need to have riot police at the escalators instructing them how to use one.
Amen!
I usually try to ignore it, but once I tried to slide by, with the requisite smile and excuse me, and the lady became confused. I gave her a lecture on how its best for people to stand to the right and walk on the left, just like one does on a highway. Slow lane right, pass on the left. Is it really that nebulous?
No doubt they returned to Hooterville with stories of the know it all city slicker.
They're blocking now the escalators. They congregate at the bottum and don't even realize they are going to get someone killed.
betamanlet,
Normally I agree with your posts, but tourists bring tourist dollars that DC desperately needs to stay afloat. Everyone should keep that in mind.
And the term "mall" is confusing to some people -- they associate it with a shopping mall, not an expanse of grass.
They're blocking now the escalators. They congregate at the bottum and don't even realize they are going to get someone killed.
Last night I went to board the down escalators at McPherson Square. A mother and child parked themselves in the middle of a riser on one of the two escalators. Commuters had been queuing evenly for the two escalators until this pair boarded. The line then immediately and silently shifted to the one escalator that was not blocked.
That said, I can remember some rather dense tourists from my childhood. I was stopped several times on Wisconsin Avenue in Cathedral Heights by folks who could not locate the Washington National Cathedral. Usually they figured it out after I encouraged them to glance slightly upwards.
And Amen to the suggestion that we force folks to move away from the bottoms of escalators! That said, when I briefly lived abroad as a student, I could spot the American tourists because they were the ones stopped dead in an impenetrably cluster at the terminus of nearly every escalator.
betamanlet,
Normally I agree with your posts, but tourists bring tourist dollars that DC desperately needs to stay afloat. Everyone should keep that in mind.
And the term "mall" is confusing to some people -- they associate it with a shopping mall, not an expanse of grass.
Nobody anywhere "likes" tourist, but we all are at times. So fair statement.
Still, if you are visiting a place, would it not be prudent to maybe read a bit about it and thus discover that the National Mall is not DC's version of the Galleria Hooterville? The original meaning of Mall is indeed something akin to an expanse of grass. Words often have multiple meanings.
I welcome all the tourists to the DC area. The more the better. They should flood this place.
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