DC

For the first time in a few weeks we found ourselves in a city with conspicuous bustle and activity, the capital, DC. It was reassuring, it expunged that feeling that there is a heart somewhere out there that we hadn't found yet, as was the case in other cities. DC felt broad and important, bristling with hard talk and brilliant in the crisp sunshine.

It's been easy to tell which attractions around the US have most affected and compelled Champ. He asks for his picture to be taken rarely, but always in front of what are highlights for him. The Lincoln Memorial and the Mall were 2.

We met up with Geoff from Japan now in back in the States. Together we climbed the Washington Monument on a gloriously sunny day and had a taste of the Smithsonian Institute collection of museums. Inside, the original American Flag, C-3PO and an audio recording of 5 callers on NPR's 'Car Talk', in reverse order of just exactly how I liked them.

Later we wandered Georgetown University and saw many many young pretty things in skirts and money dripping off their wrists and necks with polo shirts and pastel colours and an on-campus bookstore full of Georgetown merchandise and mused about student life with rose-tinted glasses before remembering that pressing feeling that came at the end of college or university or whatever you want to call it, of getting out into the world and actually trying to prove yourself beyond the books and the tests and put some money in your pocket. Lately that feeling's been coming back.