Max & Jono in The America

a blurry photo of Paradise Cove Beach Café

I got back from The America today and I was very relieved. That place is WEIRD, although I am sure that a lot of that impression comes from the fact that I was surrounded by relatives for half of my trip. My family is like anyone else’s, I suppose: approximately half of the relatives are pretty cool, the other half are mad as a box of frogs, and a couple are absolute retards. I met my new niece who, at 10 weeks old, is pretty cuddly but otherwise shockingly insect-like. I had never realised that babies have very little control over their limbs and move around like a bug that is stuck on its back and unable to right itself.

Because of everything that was going on with family, etc, I barely got any news – I had almost no time to read newspapers and no time at all to get online for real news. I saw a bit of tv “news” and was shocked to find out that the port security-UAE connection was just coming out in mainstream sources. We had some political discussions in DC, but nothing too in-depth. That was a big contrast for me because we seem to talk about politics and Iraq and everything that is going on in the world all the bloody time here in Prague. I felt very out of touch with the world, kind of sheltered, in fact, and I wonder if that is the reality for a lot of Americans (and perhaps people of other nationalities) much of the time.

Washington, DC

Our main purpose in going to Washington was to see friends, which was fantastic. Other than that, our tourist highlights were going out to Great Falls, Maryland and going to the National Archive to visit the Magna Carta and The Charters of Freedom. I had not known that there was an original copy (over 700 years old) of the Magna Carta in the US. Jono, being a limey, tried to claim that it was his, but I reminded him that the Magna Carta also belongs to us as it is the first constitutional document of the legal system that we used to share with England and that is the basis of our own system.

The Charters of Freedom is the collective name for the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It was extraordinarily cool to see the originals. They are still there in their holy of holies being properly protected from the elements, and I was relieved to see that they had not actually been used as toilet paper by anyone.

SmelL-A

The main reason for Jono’s and my trip was Nephew #2’s bar mitzvah – hence seeing the plethora of relatives. The weather in LA was perfect, about 21°C (70°F) – a very nice break for us from winter in London and Prague. We took advantage of our free afternoon on Saturday (between the bar mitzvah itself and the party in the evening) to drive through Malibu Canyon and up Pacific Coast Highway, with the top down, to Paradise Cove to sit at a table outside in the sand where a nice lady brought us beers. That was, of course, the only aspect of our stay in LA that was remotely vacation-like.

Oh, and if anyone is wondering about the bar mitzvah – Nephew #2 did very well and made us all proud. Nephew #1, Little Sister and Max also managed to read their torah portions without fucking up. In addition, New Niece’s baby-naming took place at the service – she slept right through it. That evening at the party, having pre-arranged a lift home, Jono and I drank lots of vodka martinis. Of course there is always hard alcohol at our family functions. Nephew #1 asked Auntie Max to order him a drink at the bar, which Auntie Max was happy to do.