Towers of Babel

I love taking in all the sights the District of Columbia has to offer. Second best is taking in the tourists taking in the sights! In the past few weeks I've seen more Europeans than I ever did during my time abroad (this is an exaggeration- artistic creativity, I'm running with it). My first week living here a poor Japanese man came up to me with a map begging for directions. I still have no clue where he wanted to go, the map he was pointing so desperately at was sooooo not in English and when you combine my horrible sense of direction with general newness to the area he could not have approached a worse person.

 

Still, this was my time to be a diplomat for America! It was my civic duty to help this tourist. I squint at his map, look around blindly for a street sign, anything which will help me figure out what the hell I'm doing, there is nothing. I look again at his map, and poke knowingly at the small drawing of Dupont Circle surrounded by Japanese, "That," I tell him, "is somewhere over there" with an offhand gesture that lands somewhere near CVS, and walk off as fast as I can. Hopefully the next opportunity I have to represent this great nation runs a little smoother.

 

Being surrounded by so many different languages is waking up my need to travel! Until then, I'm going to close my eyes, sit back, eavesdrop and pretend I'm in France!