Day 132 Washington DC 3rd day
Trip Start
May 07, 2008
1
139
205
Trip End
Nov 22, 2008
Washington DC,
District of Columbia,
United States
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
We had arranged to visit the Washington Post at 10am this morning, to avoid the peak hour traffic we left at around 8:45am.
The trip caught us up with a little peak hour traffic but not overly troublesome. The car park we had used the previous two days was full but across the road was space with a charge of $4 per day.
We sorted the train fare to the station Karisue had suggested, came above ground and became "lost in Washington" we headed towards the Whitehouse, arrived at a corner and figured it was time to give our friend a call on the phone to ask where or what direction we should head.
No problem, go to 15 and L street, GREAT if you have any idea where they may be. Well we walked the next block to find 15 and off in the wrong direction until we realized this problem, U-turn (much easier on foot than in the Castle!) create footsteps along the route and find that 15th street turns in to Vermont street, oh boy!
Never mind keep going, we tramp along until we come to L street, no Washington Post!, spin around a few times and Eagle Eye Earnie spots a building with Post on the side, we tramp that way to find it is the "Post Pub" mmmm must be close cause now we are on the corner of 15th and L, please don't ask how Vermont street did a number on us, we simply cannot answer the question.
Still no Washington post.
Never mind the dry cleaning shop will give the information, Upon making inquiries, we received a BLANK look! But we were directed to look back up the street by a person passing by. Yee haa there she blows!
We head into the lobby to be meet with a security check in, no big deal we have been through this before, problem was that the guy had not been on the desk for 10 years and was being retrained on the computer, we supplied ID, and waited! And waited and waited, Karisue rang to attempt to find out where we were, we explained the storey, By the time she arrived we had been checked in and away we went.
Understandable the security in this building, The Washington Post is quite often the host to celebrities and politicians to be interviewed.
Karisue proudly showed us around her workplace and introduced us to her workmates, Her immediate boss (Alan) took time out to sit down with us and have a great chat and suggested a couple of sights we should visit, after he found out about our Gettysburg visit, the respect she is shown was apparent with people immediately happy to put down important tasks to say hi, even interrupt a book review meeting to come out and invite us in, to say hi!
We were shown around the book and magazine section of the paper, a room full of books waiting to be reviewed, up to the newsroom, it was reasonably quite but was beginning to rumble a little, interesting as you walk past desks and hear snippets of conversation from reporters, Such as we heard as we walked past one desk "The pentagon is denying the storey, I am trying to source the beginning"
They have a section within this area for live broadcasts to TV and a person was sitting waiting to cross live for an interview.
We then were escorted up to the Executive offices, a well decorated and expansive office reception area with beautiful art work and pictures hanging, including one of the original owners , his son in law, and his daughter, she took over the management of the paper after died.
The paper had some of the best reporters in the business with high integrity, and loyalty. As we were being shown around the executive offices we came up to an office that contained three men.
We were introduced to these men and being simple Aussie travellers had no idea the importance or real identity of these guys.
We had a great chat with the main guy, Ben Bradlee, and a couple of words with Bo Jones, xxxx, Ben recalled Sydney from his days in WWII and a couple of visits since. A great guy to chat with.
This is worth a look at this link if you have the time!
As we left the office Karisue asked us if we knew of these guys. Nope we had no clue, they just seemed nice guys, especially Ben.
Well it turns out that these guys were the guys that reported on the pentagon papers as well as broke the Watergate storey, (they are all depicted in a film: All The Presidents Men....) They upheld the truths and beliefs under a lot of pressure and threats from the white house at the time. Ben Bradlee was the editor of the Washington post and would be the guru of the newspaper worlds.
Here is a link to an interview with him.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Bradlee
A straight talking guy with wonderful integrity and truth!
As we left the Executive offices, we were introduced to the present owner and managing director of the newspaper.
We congratulate Karisue in finding a wonderful place for her employment and her high integrity is well suited to such a paper. We certainly enjoyed the visit and thank you for the time you gave us.
We all wish you the best for your future no matter path you choose.
It was time for lunch before embarking on the bus around town, we walked down towards the White House and around this impressive (from a distance) building with a great awareness of the security surrounding & protecting the building and those inside.
We spoke to a young lady from Texas assigned to the White House as Secret Service, (whoops the secret is out we have a photo of her). We went through the security of the White house information centre, Not near the White House) our question was about the Bus about tour of Washington. We were told they did not know about where it stopped, we subsequently found the bus stopped right outside this building in front of the information centre door! Gee they do keep their heads down in this city! It reminds us of Sergeant Shultz "I know nothing!"
We eventually found the bus about tour and piled on, we found ourselves near the Korean war Memorial (which is worth a visit) the bus took us around to Arlington Cemetery (over 300,000 military buried here). The next stop was the Lincoln Memorial; we hopped off to take a closer look at this huge memorial.
We continued on the bus about to complete the biggest part of the section and view more buildings, we certainly are impressed with the wonderful architecture and impressive buildings within this Capitol city.
We hopped off and headed to catch our Metro back home.
A successful day in the city and home we head (nope we didn't stop for Chinese tonight!) arrived home and begin cooking to find our friends Owen and Bev online. Give them a call to discover they are in the same RV park as us, (They had asked about our presence in the park, and again found the Sergeant Shultz response, Karon had been talking to the receptionist that morning and had rebooked in 3 hours before Owen and Bev turned up. is it a disease?) They wandered over after dinner for a chat. (or was it to get the rundown on Washington? J ) Never mind we enjoyed a chat and planned to catch up tomorrow evening after we all have had another trip into the city.
