It took Joel Hammond exactly one weekend to become an expert on Washington D.C. So now he shares his brilliance with you, Dear Reader.
By Joel Hammond
210 west Writer [send email]
Washington, D.C. Our nation's capital. A major city that one who grew up east of the Mississippi has likely visited by the age of 21,.
Well before this past weekend, I was not of those ones. I had been to Cleveland and Pittsburgh, but never D.C.
Consider me sheltered. I never went on the D.C. fifth-grade field trip. My senior class was too big to take a trip together.
So when I ventured into our nation's capital this weekend to visit an old friend of mine, I was admittedly a bit frightened -- a big-city virgin, if you will.
Don't get me wrong. I've seen my fair share of nasty neighborhoods and drug-infested streets. Like our managing editor, Vince Guerrieri, I grew up outside of Youngstown, Ohio, so I was exposed daily to murder, governmental corruption and drug busts all over the city. Once I started running cross country at Austintown Fitch, a hated rival of Vince's Chaney Cowboys, we used Mill Creek Park -- a very gorgeous park in its good parts and a nasty one in the bad -- to train.
But nothing that has happened in Youngstown and its surrounding areas, including finding a woman beaten in the woods on a trail in Mill Creek, and most recently a family friend-turned-Youngstown-cop being gunned down, prepared me for the horror that is Washington, D.C.
And thus, I write. Here are ten tips that will help you survive if you have never been to D.C.
1. Don't be intimidated. My friend gave me that bit of advice after I told her of my experience at a local gas station when I asked for directions. Said the guy behind bullet-proof glass: "Oh, and when you're on that street, don't get out of your car. If you need more directions, roll your window down and ask someone."
He was kidding. Or so she thinks.
2. Bring small bills. There are two reasons for this: First, for when you go somewhere, the locals will think you're poor, and therefore will not beg you for money. Secondly, for the public transportation, which you will have to take (See further down).
3. Bring big bills. For the absolutely ridiculous drink prices at any near-downtown establishment.
4. Don't drive, unless you're driving downtown only. My friend has had three flat tires. I thought I had four after embarking on a journey from 42nd St. NW to downtown. The roads are absolutely atrocious.
5. Bring your motion-sickness medicine. Because after you're forced to take public transportation because of traffic/roads, you'll be sick to your stomach from the un-smoothness of the metro.
6. Bring your Prada, BCBG, Gucci or any other designer clothing/attire you have. You will be looked down upon if you wear
jeans and Timberlands.
7. Be prepared to be looked at weirdly if you take a girl to DuPont Circle and proceed to buy a bottled domestic beer. My friend tells me DuPont has the second highest homosexual population in the world, and they all drink imported wine. It just might be true.
8. Go to the Holocaust Memorial. It's amazing.
9. If you're going to D.C. from the northwest, you will sit in traffic. Interstate 495 will be backed up, no matter what time you're on it. It's one of life's certainties.
10. Lastly, but certainly not least, don't be close-minded like me. I have a feeling if I wasn't such a small-town, simple kind of guy, I'da enjoyed it more.
There ya go. Keep this list. Live it, be it.
Good luck.
Joel, I needed this column two months ago, when I spent a record six hours driving -- lost -- on the streets of D.C.
Nobody told me the entire city is laid out in such a manner as to entrap anyone who breeches its limits. Twisty diagonal streets with no street signs ... it's a miracle we Ohio kids ever made it out alive.