First of all, this place is awesome.
Pleasant meal, quiet until the drum circle got started. We were invited to join, though I demurred.
UPDATE: I stayed out until nearly eleven, extremely late for me. This is the most pleasant DC has ever been. The reason is that it is nearly empty; there’s almost no one on the streets or in the restaurants.
19th by night.
DuPont Circle; the picture didn’t come out, but does convey how empty it is.
Darkened empty streets.
Even the gay dance clubs, usually triumphant in this city, are quiet.
This is the famous Subway where “Sandwich Guy” got his sandwich.
If you don’t like cities or people very much, as I don’t especially, this city is currently optimized for you. Of course it’s because the immigrants are terrified, legal and not, and the population of disarmed people is frightened by the sight of armed soldiers patrolling their streets.
I did run into some 30th ABCT guys tonight, from the 118th mechanized infantry out of South Carolina. Real friendly guys, armed some with pistols and some with M4A1 carbines. They were somewhat amused by how much the locals are terrified by the very sight of the rifles. Everyone in the Carolinas has guns, but here they seem strange and foreign.
The mood is not entirely positive, even if I like the absence of traffic, noise, and crowds.
These places look pretty nice- doe DC have a "slum" section? I always imagined it to be a heavily patrolled up-scale area with a surrounding wasteland....
ReplyDeleteNo, it’s surprisingly poor people living among very rich people. Big Balls was beaten up in one of the most posh areas; where I was last night is usually very crowded with immigrants and homeless and the smell of marijuana.
DeleteThe real estate market in DC is insanely expensive, but there’s also lots of public housing and NGOs trying to help people find a place to stay a while.