We're staying with Mx's friend Val in Berryville, Virginia. Mx has given me explicit instructions of what I can and can't say. She's got no faith in me. Val seems really nice and I think we're gonna get on fine and have some fun.
Val kindly picked us up from the Greyhound Stop in Winchester and took us to her house. We're about 70 miles west of Washington DC and Val has given us the use of her car. Berryville is the sort of place where you leave your house and car unlocked. It's really noisy with the sound of squirrels and birds and you see the occassional Deer in the garden. In short, it's lovely.
We decided to do a bit of exploring in the car with me at the wheel. It took a few moments to get used to driving on the wrong side of the road and took me all day to take in the fact that I had a passenger and all the rest of the car on the right of me. Having got all that we headed for Washington to decide a plan of attack for Monday. The road signs, road layouts are a mystery to me and just as much a mystery to me is how we ended up at the Arlington National Cemetry. But here we were safe and sound. It seems an ideal place to abandon the car and then walk across the Arlington Memorial Bridge to see the sights. Today we just toured the Cemetry.
It seems strange doing a tour of a cemetry, but that's what happens. We decided to do the walking tour as opposed to joining the tour bus. Having seen JFK's and Joe Louis' final resting place and the tribute to the crew of Columbia and the Iranian seige we headed to the tomb of the unknown soldier, where we were 'treated' to the changing of the guard by the United States Marine Corps. It was by far the most cringe worthy display of robot soldiers I've ever seen. It had to be seen to be believed. God knows what LEP would have made of it. The American's loved it though.
We've seen enough of dead bodies over the last couple of days. I'm left with a strange impression that Americans have a morbid fascination with dead people and where they died, having visited Elvis and MLK recently. On the whole the cemetry wasn't that impressive and the grounds weren't that well kept, it was huge though.
Having found the car again we went for a trip round Washington DC to scope it out. Again Washington has a nice centre round all the nice TV stuff, but it doesn't take long to get out of the centre to the grotty bit. We even saw some Home Boyz.
We headed back to Berryville and went to the cinema to watch the new Tarantino Movie 'Kill Bill' on opening night. As ever it was brilliantly directed, but am I the only one who leaves the cinema wondering what the point was. The people who go to watch it, don't go because of the direction, they go for the action and the blood and guts. Oh yeah and if you're wondering why American culture is so mucked up, try, for a start, the fact that they let 8 year old kids in to watch a movie like this. Apparently it's down to the parents. Well with parents like that, what chance have the kids got.
