I Heart D.C.

I do. I really do. I love this place, the people, the Metro and the history. I heart it so much, I'll buy the shirt.

A few observations:

• The people. They are nice, helpful and pleasant. They go out of their way for tourists. It's pretty easy to tell who the locals are (they have building security cards/IDs around their necks instead of cameras) and they are more than willing to give help with the Metro, street directions, restaurant suggestions...whatever. Sometimes, you don't even have to ask for assistant, they apparently are pretty good at recognizing utter confusion when they see it.


• The Metro. Love the ease of travel. Glad I'm not driving here. I might not feel the love as much. I'm getting some pretty good train pictures for Mace but still have to take one of a sign that says spitting on the train isn't allowed. I think he'll like that.


• The buildings. They are large. Tall. Imposing. When climbing the stairs to one of them, say the Smithsonian Portrait Gallery, one should not be looking up at the same time because you can easily fall. Yep. I tumbled down three or four steps and twisted an ankle, but only spilled a little coffee (priorities!). The embarrassment factor was pretty high -- lotsa people around -- but the dozen that ran over to me were very sweet, only wanting to know that I was OK.


• The security. I knew it existed, but seeing Capitol cops with their rifles in their hands is somewhat startling at first. I was intended to take pictures of the Capitol building, but mostly the men with arms caught my focus every time.


• The barriers. I loves these barricades in the streets around Capitol Hill that can pop up at a moment's notice. There are others closer to buildings that are all up and as vehicles are approved to pass through, the barricades lower. I was taking some pictures and then was told to stop. Oops.

As I was riding my last Metro train this afternoon, I'd been marveling at the district-wide mind-set here and wondering how that could translate to Horizons -- that making people feel welcome, helping them out and taking on the responsibility to be a host or a tour guide was everyone's job, not just the First Impressions teams...what would that look like?

Would we have guests wanting to buy "I heart Horizons" t-shirts?

LMF