I’ve been roaming the land of the free and the home of the brave as gaper, gazer, satirist and devoted tourist of Washington D.C. for approximately three and a half weeks, without being deported, publically humiliated or killed. This amazing feat has been achieved in the face of many idiotic incidents, where things were lost and found in translation, only to be lost again. Allow me to share a few foolish observations on the Washington ecosystem.

 

Transport, traffic and the lies they tell you in primary school: The haunting songs of primary school karaoke taught me to always look left, then right when crossing the traffic light. I need to constantly remind myself that these songs were not American imports, as my fellow commuters yank me back to reality and the pavement. Or wait, is that side walk? As my near death experiences have taught me: the right side of the road to watch for traffic is appropriately the right side. My fellow commuters have also taught me (with their confused stares) that referring to a traffic light as a robot brings up strange mental images seen on the cover of bad science fiction novels.

 

Rush hour on the metro is such a literal creature. In my naïve days, I used to stretch across the escalator step like I just received its property title. Now, I cower into the corner so that the important looking men in chinos or fierce looking women in blazers can fly by me. Or, when I don my own corporate cape, I fly down those stairs myself as if the revenues of a Fortune 500 company depended on it.

 

A fine kettle of fish: My lovely host family shocked and horrified me by revealing they did not own a kettle. They had swapped the medieval instrument for its more caffeinated cousin: the percolator. Forced to indulge in the hedonistic pleasures of the caffeinated bean, I became quite a morning person. A morning person with an extremely twitchy right eye. And when I discovered that Starbucks was literally around every corner, how could I not succumb to the aromatic allure of unnecessarily complicated coffee drinks, when the practice of drinking tea is apparently frowned upon?

 

Only at my office did I discover a kettle which, of course, led to compulsive tea drinking while at work. This, together with my “exotic” accent, led many of my fellow interns to the assumption that I must be British. My vast knowledge of cricket, the royals and Jane Austen does not help the matter.

 

Environmentally friendly ugliness: If you offered me a Prius two months ago, I (the amateur environmentalist) would have told you that the Prius is the ugliest car since the unsmart Smart car and that I would rather skateboard around town than pay a bucket load of money for it. However, the Prius has infected D.C. and each day I see a fleet of the green machine crawling across the roads; leaving behind a minimal carbon footprint, of course. These people are truly making a sacrifice for the future of their children, having to see that car parked in your driveway every day. Alas, I have now become so naturalized to D.C. that the Prius no longer offends my eyes; I can look at it for six consecutive seconds.

 

The curious incident of the laptop at day time: My host family lives in a beautiful neighbourhood, where I can stroll around at 01:00 a.m. at night and come home with all of my valuables. This suburban tranquillity has dulled my street edge (note the irony) to the extent that I abandoned my laptop out in the open of the garden to go procure some coffee. As I was waiting for the percolator to percolate, my South African spidey senses tingled. I hurled myself into the garden, only to find my laptop basking in the sunlight. I remind myself daily that these American tendencies will have to be left at customs...

 

We speak no Americano: Americans have a vast, vast catalogue of condiments. Tomato sauce is not on said list however, and when they  receive an order for tomato sauce they panic and pour you a tall glass of tomato juice. Which I drank, right after asking for some “ketchup”. I was also dumbstruck to find that a scone is called a biscuit and a biscuit a cookie. Needless to say, that the confusion surrounding the naming of burgers almost overwhelmed me. In America, home of hamBURGERS and BURGER King, what South Africans perceive to be a hamburger is in fact a sandwich. Needless to say, my vocabulary has received many a raised brow.

 

These are not even the full spectrum of my foolish observations. I have gained a life time’s skills and knowledge in D.C., not just how not to die on the metro. For more serious reflections, see my other blogs. For less serious reflections, watch this space.