TO WASHINGTON, DC

Saturday, December 23

We were up in good time to pack ready for departure to Washington and met up with Sarah and Luka in the hotel lobby. Called for an Uber (I wish this were not so darn convenient!) to Penn Station, where we made out way down to the chaotic Amtrak waiting area—too few seats for too many people, garbled messages from the PA system. To make matters worse, I spilled hot coffee all over myself from an overfilled cup, soaking the rather stale, undertoasted bagel which was all we could find for breakfast. Okay, so I’m a grouch…

Then boarding the train was a nightmare. It seemed like thousands of people were ahead of us, more familiar with the boarding “system” than we were, all filtering into the narrow escalator that led down to the platform. Made the mistake of climbing into a carriage and wasting more time elbowing down the length of it in order to exit the other end. As it turned out, though, the chaos worked well for us. Amongst the last to actually find a carriage with seats, we ended up in a first class compartment—with the encouragement of the Amtrak staff who just wanted to get us stragglers boarded.

It seemed like a long ride to Washington, and when we finally arrived I was surprised by the shabby quality of the train station in the nation’s capital—at least until we emerged from underground into a splendid reception hall, all decorated for the season and with a toy train exhibit that Luka loved. Some confusion over Uber, with Sarah and Luka headed for Tim’s parents home and we for our hotel. But we found a cheery driver who took the lot of us and regaled us with horror stories about the quality of driving in Washington DC.

Arriving at the Georgetown Suites, where Chloe, Tim’s mother, had booked for us, we found ourselves in a comfortable, spacious room where we unpacked and rested up for a while before calling for another (!) Uber to take us over to the party to which Chloe and David had invited us. It was pouring with rain as we left, but we arrived unscathed to find the party already in full swing. So many people in such a tiny space! And all of them—at least those I met and talked to—such solid, interesting people. I should not name names, but these were friends of David and Chloe’s from their professional career days—a long time Time magazine writer, an art director, Washington attorneys, government department heads, and so on. Very impressive people, all deeply engaged—or formerly engaged, given that we’re all aging a bit—in the politics and culture of our time. Needless to say, we found none who had a good word for what is happening in our country at this time. So… a truly fascinating evening, and one that caused us to reflect on the differences between East Coast and West Coast intellectuals. The West Coast, sadly, did not come out so well in our reflections.

We were understandably a bit weary by the end of the evening, and were grateful for Tim’s offer to drive us back to our hotel.

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