The Melting Pot

I was all over the Washington DC area today. I started out early this morning in Frederick MD, traveled to Fairfax, VA to Manassas, Woodbridge, Springfield, and ended the day in Alexandria, VA. For those of you who haven't been in this area in a few years, here are my impressions:

• There's a whole mess of people living around this town.
• Every one of them was in a car on the area's streets today. What a mess.
• The speed limit signs must have been put up as an April Fools joke and somebody forgot to take them down. Either that or we have been taken over by the metric system and nobody told me. Let's see...55 in kilometers per hour is...yup - 85.
• I was never good with pinball machines. I would set the little steel ball in motion and then watch it fly down the table and disappear into one of the many little holes at the bottom of the gameboard. I felt like that little ball today when my car approached a series of highway signs that read, "I-95 this way. I-295 that way. I-495 Keep Left. I-395 Keep Right. Downtown Straight Ahead. Franconia Road This Exit." Oh, and just to make sure they have you at their complete mercy, this: "Road Work Ahead. Keep Left." What to do? Pray.
• English may be our first language but Vietnamese, Spanish, French (Haitian?), and Chinese are tied for second.
• There are quisines around here I didn't know existed. Ever had an urge for Peruvian food? Go down Richmond Hwy. to Hybla Valley. Honest-to-God Peruvian chicken. And before you ask, I don't know.

I have to say that I find the many ethnic areas of DC to be fascinating. It's not like Miami or El Paso where everyone around you speaks Spanish. Here you can be in an area dominated by Vietnamese immigrants (Annandale), drive five minutes down the road and be in a heavily Hispanic area (Alexandria), get back in the car and drive some more and be in what I can only guess is an area dominated by Nigerians. It reminds me a lot of the neighborhoods of Los Angeles - but everyone here gets along. And seems to have the same purpose in life - to achieve the American dream. It sure isn't like Bland County where we have white folk and ... well, white folk.