THE NATIONAL MALL AND ITS MONuments. The cherry blossoms. The National Archives. The Georgetown waterfront. The museums at Smithsonian Institution.
The monotony.
Washington, D.C., is a great weekend getaway town, but after a few visits, many of its traditional attractions ultimately fall under the heading of "been there, done that." Fortunately, the city has a plethora of new attractions dedicated to such institutions as journalism, law enforcement and science.
That's why as soon as the Washington weather turned warm, I opted for a weekend there with my 11-year-old daughter Nyaniso in tow, discovering the city's new offerings while adhering to a $500 budget.
The latter directive is a challenge, but many of D.C.'s national monuments, memorials and museums are free of charge, which often offsets inflated hotel and restaurant prices.
We committed to four reasonably priced attractions -- the Newseum, the International Spy Museum, the Marian Koshland Science Museum and a ride in an open-top tourist bus. We found tasty eats well within our budget. We got a good rate on a hotel near upmarket Dupont Circle. To further economize, we took the Metro to Washington from our home in Alexandria, Va.
The attractions we visited, however, were across town, adjacent to the Verizon Center and its adjoining shops and theaters -- a once-blighted spot that has become a magnet for tourists and locals alike.
Yet, because D.C. is one of the world's best walking cities, we traveled mainly on foot, engaging in colorful daddy-daughter chats that lasted from one neighborhood to the next.
We began our excursion at the Newseum, the spanking new, state-of-the-art facility devoted to the Fourth Estate featuring an outside exhibit of enlarged newspapers from around the globe. As I stood staring at the exhibit, I wondered: How soon will these papers be replaced with computer screens that display their corresponding Web pages?
It's a fair question. With the rising popularity of the Internet as a news source, you would think newspapers were on their way out quicker than schoolchildren when the final bell rings.
That's why our visit began here: If the place that featured journalism history was to portray my line of work as a thing whose time had mostly past, I wanted to get it over with.
As it turns out, the Newseum is one of the best things that has happened to the profession in years. With seven stories that feature 14 major galleries and 15 theaters, it is an innovative way to foster fascination and respect for truth-gathering and truth-telling.
