The weather was kinder today. Clouds blocked the sun and it was much cooler, though it was still a hot day. I set out, determined to see SOMETHING worth seeing today.

I didn't dick around this time. I went straight to the Library of Congress. 

The LoC isn't really a library. It's a museum of American books. You don't get to wander the stacks, but the library has put a bunch of interesting library artifacts on display for visitors. The big, vaulted central room and the gallery above it were impressive. It's more like a cathedral than a library, and that was on purpose. Back when the LoC was built, libraries were venerated institutions dedicated to learning for all. It was religious, in its way. Hence the impressive architecture. 

It was also very crowded. Yesterday the Archives and the MAH had only a sprinkling of visitors, so I was surprised at the big crowd at the Library. Why was it more popular? No idea.

I poked around to my satisfaction and realized I was starving. I'd skipped breakfast, and it was already way past lunchtime. 

Outside, I found a hole-in-the-wall diner. It was as narrow as a Dutch house, and it was crowded. I had to squeeze past other diners to get to the counter, where I ordered a club sandwich and fries. The server brought me the fries the moment they came out of the fryer, so they were hot and crispy and perfect. The club sandwich was delicious, too. I think this diner was one of the high points of Washington! 

That done, I headed over to the Folger Shakespeare Library because ... Shakespeare! This place was pretty cool. It's a private museum, so there's no security check, for one thing. For another, they have 84 copies of the First Folio. Published in 1623 (seven years after Shakespeare's death), it was the first compilation of Shakespeare's plays and it saved him from historical obscurity. Without the Folio, no one today would know who Shakespeare was or what his plays were like. 

The Folios are on display on a big wall. They lie flat on their sides behind glass under dim light to avoid fading. There's also a lot of historical information about the different copies (who owned them, where they were found, etc.) and about Shakespeare himself. They also had a replica of an FF that you could page through to see what it was like. The thing is HEAVY! 

Multiple times while I was there, I found myself thinking, "Ooo! I have to tell my students this" before I remembered I won't ever tell them anything again. It made the museum into an odd trip. I was going just for my own interest, not to better myself as an educator.

Next, I headed back to the National Mall to see what trouble I could get into. To my surprise, Capitol Hill was open for business, so I went in.

I should mention here two features of every national building in Washington DC. First is that admission is free to all of them. Second is that you have to go through airport-level security to go into any of them. I understood why, but when you've removed your belt for the third time in one day, you get aggravated.

Anyway, I wove through security at the Capitol and had a look-see.

The inside was more like a train station than a government building. There were lines for this and that, and crowds of people sloshing from one side to the other. Lots of statues. I started to explore, and then stopped. I didn't feel good. Emotionally, that is. I really, really didn't want to be there. Why? The current administration. I just couldn't stomach being in the same building as the current Congress. So I left. I'd been in for maybe ten minutes.

Outside, there was a guy sitting in a chair under an umbrella. He was wrapped in white bandages from head to foot. A sign at his feet explained that he was in day three of a hunger strike. I felt like I should offer him words of support or something, but I didn't feel comfortable with the idea for some reason, so I didn't.

Next, I went to the Supreme Court building. Is it weird that the Supreme Court building has a gift shop? Yes. Yes, it is. The lobby area is really another museum, and you can also join tours. There are signs everywhere about LIBERTY and FREEDOM and RULE OF LAW. I felt angry and nauseated at the sight. So I turned my back and left. So much for that.

I was done. I just couldn't stand the thought of examining yet another display expounding the glories of the American government and its emphasis on freedom and liberty and justice. Not when the current administration was destroying every one of those ideals. It was time to go back to the flat.

The buses weren't running right--some kind of breakdown somewhere--so I treated myself to a nice, air-conditioned Uber and rode back to the flat, chewing over what had just happened.

Wednesday in Washington. The heat wave continues. 

Today was my long day, the one day when I had no appointments or other engagements. It was to be my main day to tour the city. There's no way to see even a zillionth of Washington in one day, so I'd narrowed it down. I'd spend the morning at the Smithsonian and the afternoon at the National Archive and the Library of Congress. Then, if I had the energy, I'd try another museum.

Best laid plans...

First, the accidental good thing. I passed a department store and remembered that it was supposed to rain later. An umbrella would be a good idea. I popped in and bought one. Then I realized that I'd have to carry it all day unless I wanted to go all the way back to my flat to drop it off. I decided to carry it. Good decision, it turned out.

The sun was blazing, punishing, and relentless. It slammed into me the moment I exited the Metro, and I had several blocks to walk to the Smithsonian. I kept to the shade of the buildings as much as I could, but I was seriously sweating by the time I arrived.

The Smithsonian was closed.

Or rather, that big castle building that everyone thinks of when you say "Smithsonian" was closed for renovation.  A helpful sign suggested that disappointed tourists visit one of the other Smithsonian museums nearby. I trudged sweatily to the Museum of American History, which was wonderfully air-conditioned. The MAH was diverting, but I already knew most of the history it explained. The displays were interesting enough, but I'd come to see the famous American artifacts like the Spirit of Saint Louis and Lincoln's chair from Ford's Theater. Well, whattayagonnado? I explored the MAH to my satisfaction, then headed toward the National Archive and the Library of Congress.

Here's where the umbrella came in. At this time of day, the sun was overhead and the  building shadows were non-existent. I promptly put up my new umbrella. If I hadn't had it with me, I would have been forced to go back "home," or hide inside another building for a few hours.

To get to the LoC by foot, you have to pass by (or through) the National Mall, so I explored that on the way. It's massive. Photos don't give you the sheer scale of the place. I've seen smaller prairie farms. Trees line the sides of the grassy part, and I gratefully kept to their shade. I walked the entire length of the mall toward Capitol Hill. At one point, I stopped at a little cafe, the only one in sight, and bought a can of Coke for $4.50. It was worth it.

I found the National Archive first. Here the main thing to see are the originals of the founding documents: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. They're kept under glass on the third floor under an echoing rotunda. The documents are faded to the point of near illegibility. I was barley able to make out John Hancock's signature. But it was still impressive to see them. There was also a letter from Abraham Lincoln, in his own handwriting, demanding emancipation for enslaved people. I felt like I was reaching back in time and touching Lincoln when I read his words from his own hand.

Outside, I realized I was starving, so I found a place to eat before hitting the Library of Congress. I had to pass Capitol Hill though, so I figured I'd stop by, thinking I could do a little walk-through, I found it surrounded by fencing. No one allowed inside. I wondered what they were afraid of. Visitors were left to stand in the blazing sun and had to content myself with looking at the enormous building from the outside. And it IS enormous. A huge display of wealth and power.

By now, I felt nauseated and a little dizzy, early symptoms of dehydration. I wouldn't make it to the Library at this rate. The nearest building was the Botanical Garden, so I headed over there. That could be kind of fun, I thought. The lobby was life-savingly cool, but the areas with the plants were tropical--almost as warm as outside. I couldn't handle more than a couple minutes. I went back to the lobby and sat on a bench, reading, until I had cooled off enough to continue.

At this point, I realized I was just exhausted. The thought of touring more buildings that might or might not be open made me cringe. So I went back to the flat. This, however, involved a long walk to the subway station, still in the all-powerful sun. I made it back safely and drank about a gallon of water, then just rested for the afternoon.

I got restless later, though, and remembered that the flat was basically across the street from the National Zoo. They closed in a couple of hours, but hey--admission was free, so I wasn't losing anything by going. 

Hoo boy.

When you enter the National Zoo, you find yourself at the beginning of a long, wide brick avenue. You walk down it and walk and walk and walk. Bamboo thickets line the thing so you can't see anything but the avenue. Why bamboo? Pandas! The pandas are the jewels in the crown, the stars of the show, the gooey center of the lava cakes. And they don't let you forget it. Every few feet there was a panda sign, a panda cafe, a stand selling panda merch. We have pandas! Did you know we have pandas? Come see the pandas!

I kept walking and walking and walking. No wildlife at all. Were there any actual animals in this zoo? I finally came across a gap in the bamboo barrier that revealed I was actually on a bridge above the elephant enclosure. Two elephants, far below and far away, hosed themselves with dust. That was it.

I kept on going. Everywhere I went, though, I found empty enclosures. No sign of any animal life. Not a sausage. A sign said the sloth bear was being attended to by the vet, but that was it. The hell?

At last I came to the panda house. The big one. The grand finale. You can probably see where this is going. 

In the panda house, there was exactly one panda happily munching bamboo behind glass. That was it. From the advertising, I'd expected an entire valley of them like in the third Kung Fu Panda movie. Or at least two of them. Nope. Just the one. And watching it eat was only interesting for about three minutes. At least the building had AC. At this point, I gave up.

I have to say the National Zoo was a huge disappointment. You'd think that, as the NATIONAL zoo of the USA, it would be the best. It would set the standard and make all the other zoos jealous. But really? It was small and uninspiring. It would have been dull even if all the animals had been front and center dancing with little top hats and canes. I trudged back to the flat for my second shower of the day.

The rest of the evening, I caught up on my reading. It was an unfortunately lackluster day.

The biggest problem was the horrifying heat. I'm from Michigan, and I'm used to summer scorchers, but this was another level entirely. It was my own fault, I suppose--everyone knows DC in July is a misery. But the heat was compounded by everything being closed or under renovation. 

Or blocked off.

Well, tomorrow was the Big Day--my own passport application. I gathered up the papers I'd need, mapped out my route, and worked out how long it would take to get there. With that small accomplishment behind me, I went to bed.

Last month, Darwin and I joined my cousin Mark and his wife Tamara for a week in Puerto Rico. It was a delight!

Once we got there, anyway.

The day Darwin and I were supposed to fly out, a snowstorm swept in and delayed our flight from Detroit, meaning we'd miss our connecting flight in Charlotte. We ended up having to wait until the next day--and THAT flight was delayed on the runway because the plane needed to be de-iced and it took a lot longer than normal. So we were going to miss that day's connecting flight, too! I have to say, though, that American Airlines stepped up. Darwin and I spent an unhappy four hours in the air, wondering how the hell we were going to get to the island before our vacation actually ended, but when we landed and our internet was restored, we got alerts that American had automatically rescheduled our connecting flight to one that was leaving promptly after we landed. We did have to sprint through the airport, but we made it and finally ended up in Puerto Rico. Whew.

This was my and Darwin's second visit to PR. We absolutely love it there. When I left the airport and the summery air swept over me, I marveled at how much I felt at home. 

We picked up our rental car without incident and met Mark and Tamara at the flat we'd all rented. To tell the truth, I was a little uneasy at first. Mark and I grew up together and we shared a number of family vacations right up until we were teenagers, and things always went perfectly well. But we hadn't traveled together since then, and we've gotten rather older in the intervening years. We're close as adults, but we hadn't done any overnight travel together, let along with Darwin and Tamara. Would we get along?

Short answer: yes!

We actually had a formal discussion about vacation stuff before we left and decided not to overschedule ourselves as a foursome in order to avoid stress. The only things we set up in advance was a hiking and kayaking trip, a visit to Old Town San Juan, and a visit to the fort El Moro. For the rest of the time, we gave all of ourselves permission to do what we wanted, either together or separate, and no one should feel pressure to do stuff together the entire time. This worked out very well. And Mark and Tamara proved to be easygoing flat-mates.

The four of us took a hiking trip through the rainforest that culminated in a visit to a waterfall/river/swimming hole. We enjoyed that very much. Then it was time to go on a sunset kayaking tour of the bio-luminescent bay, where the local plankton spark when you hit the water with a paddle or your hand. It made for a tiring but enjoyable day.

The trip to Old Town was also fun, especially when we came across the bird park, which is filled with thousands of aggressive pigeons. Tamara bought a sackful of feed and quickly found herself covered in birds from head to foot. We tried and failed to find the ice cream shop Darwin and I loved last time, but we did find the fantastic restaurant we remembered and had a wonderful lunch there. I really have to learn to make empanadas.

The four of us shared some meals and also wandered along the ocean walk. The Atlantic is a stunner. We also enjoyed perfect weather all week--seventies at night, low eights during the day, only a single afternoon of light rain. It was like the island was flirting with us.

We spent the rest of the week idling around the island. Mark and Tamara took an all-day hike on the western side of the island one day, and Darwin and I re-explored Candado in San Juan. We slept late with the windows open to the ocean breezes. On impulse, the four of us took another kayak tour around the lagoon near our flat building. I went swimming a couple times in the sheltered bay in Condado and got a perfect tan. And Mark and I re-connected, and the four of us regular-connected. Darwin haven't done much vacationing with other couples, and we had a fine time doing so with Mark and Tamara. I told Mark, "Yep--we're vacation-compatible. No small thing!" He laughed and agreed.

The week went by too fast. Darwin and I are giving serious consideration to moving there after we're both retired, or at least doing the snowbird thing. We'll see what happens.

The flight home was straightforward and without incident, but it was sad in that it meant we were leaving. I'm already trying to figure out when we'll go back.

I really wanted to Get Out of Michigan for mid-winter break (when the winter blahs really set in), and I investigated Puerto Rico as a possibility. There are many advantages! Since PR is a US territory, it means American citizens don't need passports, custom stops, foreign cell phone plans, or any of the other annoyances that go with travel to a different country. And it's warm! I found a short-term rental in the party district of San Juan, and off Darwin and I went!

So far we've been loving it. The weather has been in the mid-80s in the day and the low 70s at night. We're on the ocean, and get the lovely ocean breezes. We get to wear shorts and t-shirts and sun hats. In February. Incredible!

One thing that's caught my notice is that the sun sets about about 6:30 PM every day. In Michigan, that means it's winter and COLD outside. But down in PR, it's summery. So we have early darkness but warm weather, and I =love= warm summer nights. It's heaven!

We've explored large chunks of San Juan, including El Morro, the fort Spain built after the Dutch almost took the island away from Spain in 1625. Over the next 100 or so years, the fort was expanded and redone until it became a huge stone edifice with a labyrinth of levels and corridors and lookout posts and cannon platforms. So many cannon platforms. And a deep dry moat that would be instant death to any invading soldier that went into it. Nowadays it's a big tourist attraction and World Heritage Site. The land it sits on juts out into the ocean, and there's a long, long, long road leading up to it that crosses a flat expanse of lawn. This is on purpose--if you wanted to invade the fort by land, you'd be exposing yourself to cannon and gun fire for a good half mile. In the Dutch invasion of 1625, the area was covered in thousands of corpses from the battle. Today, people fly kites on it. I think the modern way is much better.

Darwin and I, as we always do, speculated what life for the average person was like at the fort. We saw drawings of soldiers in many-layered woolen uniforms and boots and hats. They must have been miserable most of the time! The food was awful and you had to pay for it, meaning most soldiers had no money at all. You would think that Spain would want well-fed, well-trained soldiers at this place, since it's the gateway to the Caribbean, but...nope!

We also explored the Old City, dissecting the architecture. We poked our heads into the shamefully-shabby cathedral of San Juan. We checked out many shops and strolled along some remains of the original wall that used to surround the city. Always fun.

Yesterday, we went hiking in the rainforest as part of a tour that also took us to an eye-popping rocky series of pools and waterfalls, one of which has a natural waterslide that, at the end, dumps you several feet into deep, cool water. There's also a high-dive rock (yes, I jumped the 30-odd feet downward), and a good old-fashioned rope that lets you swing out over the pool for a breathtaking plunge into it. All this involves a lot of rock and tree climbing, which I absolutely loved. Acrophobic Darwin was content to watch me from the sidelines. 

After that, we squished our way to a kayak tour at sunset. The group of us started on the ocean and paddled into a river lined with mangrove trees. At sunset. It was both eerie and romantic, with the trees creating a low tunnel and the coqui frogs calling and giant fish splashing. We emerged at a bay filled with micro-organisms that flare with bio-luminescence when they're disturbed. Usually this means every kayak is surrounded by a soft blue glow and every dip of the paddle creates a little burst of light, but tonight the little critters weren't having any of it, and they only sparked a little. It was still pretty awesome. The evening kayak ride through the mangroves alone was worth the price.

And we've eaten. Darwin has been uncharacteristically daring and has been trying new foods. Wonderful! At a hole-in-the-wall restaurant by El Morro, we tried Sancocha, a stew of simmered beef that originated at El Morro as a way to make the awful dried meat imported from Spain edible. Now it's a national dish, and it's wonderful. So is Mofongo, a base of plantains and garlic with the consistency of cornbread that you stuff or top with a protein (shrimp, pork, or beef) and a luscious sauce. And arroz masteado ("mason rice"?). And much other deliciousness that is new to both of us.

The kayak tour yesterday was tiring, so today so far we're just hanging out on the balcony, enjoying the warm weather. Who knows what trouble we'll get into later!

 After Croatia we spent one more day at sea. Days at sea are great for the guests and hell for the crew. All the guests are on the ship all the time, which means everyone wants to eat all the time. And drink. The bars are crazy. The pool is mobbed. Darwin and I were content to hole up in our cabin and sneak out to the dining room every so often.

 THE CRUISE: DRIVING ON CRETE

 I have to back up a little. On the first day of the cruise, Darwin and I were wandering around one of the swimming pools on the top deck when a plump, blonde woman in her 70s engaged us in conversation. Her name was Maggie. She was friendly, overly so, and talked and talked and talked. She said she was born in Ireland but traveled all over the world and was a US citizen and her husband in Ohio was this and that and the other. I was trying to figure out how to extricate ourselves when she abruptly asked if were a couple. Darwin said we were married.

 

 Our cabin on the Oosterdam ("oh-ster-dahm") was bigger than we expected—the size of a decent hotel room. Queen bed, lots of closet space, two-sink bathroom with a jetted bathtub AND a phone booth shower.