A Sure Sign of Spring: Class Field Trips to DC
Welcome to DC, my new school friends from Oregon! Welcome to an education in government and group-effect traveling.
Obey your “Core Knowledge School” headmaster and the haggard parents chaperoning you. Be focused on the sights before you.
The White House, which you are on your way to see today, the Capitol tomorrow, the Smithsonian all week long – these are national treasures, even if their occupants might be fools.
Be solemn at memorials, respect Arlington’s tombstones, and don’t try to jump the Eternal Flame.
And if you do happen to use Metrorail, where us city-dwellers are rushing on with our lives, don’t be a turon – stand to the right on the escalators.
Try grabbing lunch in the Longworth Cafeteria on the Hill. It’s the most frustrating experience one could have (if one wasn’t used to trying to subsist among India-like throngs).
Who cares, you’re a staffer anyways.
How many tourons read DC Metblogs? I fear your etiquette tips may be for naught…
I made the mistake of stopping by the Museum of Natural History yesterday to check out their orchid exhibit. It was swarmed with packs of students. ‘Alright,’ I figured, ‘the exhibit is near all of the freaky stuffed animals. Surely there won’t be as many people upstairs looking at rocks.’
Wrong. More mobs. The only place I ended up by myself was by the weird mannequins of the progress of man. Figures.