displacement
Dec. 29th, 2006 02:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzfishPillsbury makes a brand of biscuits called "Grands." They're pretty good, but really flaky.
When I moved here I didn't bother buying any maps. I figured Googlemaps can get me a good overview of where I'm trying to go (not the directions, just the maps). Besides, I'd need a map of northern Virginia, one of DC, and one or two of Maryland to cover all the places I'm likely to be. My parents decided this was an intolerable state of affairs and got me the ADC Northern Virginia map for Christmas. It's a handy thing to have. But I still don't have a map of Maryland or the district. Isn't that grand?
Honestly, it's okay for the most part. Anywhere I go in Maryland is likely to be in the company of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
uilos, so that's not a big deal. And I avoid driving in the district on general principle. The one-way streets and the narrowness and the flood of cars generate more stress than I want to deal with. I can navigate reasonably well via metro provided I have time to plan out where I'm going: one-way streets are irrelevant to a pedestrian. But driving? Not so much.
The first time I went driving in the district I got lost in southeast for an hour or so. This was pretty impressive considering I'd been trying to get home (to Burke) from a restaurant in Fairfax.
I know I drove the minivan to the Kennedy Center at least once, and I know I drove the pickup to get a load of railroad ties from somewhere. KenCen is easy; the railroad ties thing was back in the maze of twisty little streets all alike. I /think/ that was the last time I'd driven in actual DC. A dozen years ago.
Until today, when my metro-to-DC-for-lunch-and-afternoon-wandering date turned into hurried-lunch-and-by-the-way-you're-driving-us-into-DC while I was on the way to pick her up. That was just grand.
Getting there was awkward: either I missed a sign or it doesn't exist, so there was some amount of backtracking, "What-the-hell"ing, and general irritation. But I had a navigator for that part. That helped more than I'd expected it to. No, it was the way back that caused trouble. "Go straight down Connecticut, I think I saw signs for 495." Argh.
Thus, when Connecticut became 18th (I think) and the Washington monument rose up before me in all its majesty, I panicked, and called for help. I imagine this made me the subject of some amount of derision. As it happened, all I needed to do was keep going straight and I would have been fine: the signs only said "50 East" but from that I could deduce that "50 West" was the other direction and turn appropriately.
It was, all things considered, not as hellacious as it could have been. With a map in hand it might even be worth doing again.
Until I get a map, though, I'm sticking to metro.
When I moved here I didn't bother buying any maps. I figured Googlemaps can get me a good overview of where I'm trying to go (not the directions, just the maps). Besides, I'd need a map of northern Virginia, one of DC, and one or two of Maryland to cover all the places I'm likely to be. My parents decided this was an intolerable state of affairs and got me the ADC Northern Virginia map for Christmas. It's a handy thing to have. But I still don't have a map of Maryland or the district. Isn't that grand?
Honestly, it's okay for the most part. Anywhere I go in Maryland is likely to be in the company of
uilos, so that's not a big deal. And I avoid driving in the district on general principle. The one-way streets and the narrowness and the flood of cars generate more stress than I want to deal with. I can navigate reasonably well via metro provided I have time to plan out where I'm going: one-way streets are irrelevant to a pedestrian. But driving? Not so much.The first time I went driving in the district I got lost in southeast for an hour or so. This was pretty impressive considering I'd been trying to get home (to Burke) from a restaurant in Fairfax.
I know I drove the minivan to the Kennedy Center at least once, and I know I drove the pickup to get a load of railroad ties from somewhere. KenCen is easy; the railroad ties thing was back in the maze of twisty little streets all alike. I /think/ that was the last time I'd driven in actual DC. A dozen years ago.
Until today, when my metro-to-DC-for-lunch-and-afternoon-wandering date turned into hurried-lunch-and-by-the-way-you're-driving-us-into-DC while I was on the way to pick her up. That was just grand.
Getting there was awkward: either I missed a sign or it doesn't exist, so there was some amount of backtracking, "What-the-hell"ing, and general irritation. But I had a navigator for that part. That helped more than I'd expected it to. No, it was the way back that caused trouble. "Go straight down Connecticut, I think I saw signs for 495." Argh.
Thus, when Connecticut became 18th (I think) and the Washington monument rose up before me in all its majesty, I panicked, and called for help. I imagine this made me the subject of some amount of derision. As it happened, all I needed to do was keep going straight and I would have been fine: the signs only said "50 East" but from that I could deduce that "50 West" was the other direction and turn appropriately.
It was, all things considered, not as hellacious as it could have been. With a map in hand it might even be worth doing again.
Until I get a map, though, I'm sticking to metro.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-30 02:57 pm (UTC)There is actually a plan despite the fact that I personally feel that L'Enfant created the circles and state streets by putting down cups of coffee and playing pixie sticks on the maps.
Everything starts from the big cross that's made by North Capitol (north of the capitol) East capitol (east of the Capitol), South Capitol (to the south) and the Mall with the museums (to the west with Constitution and Independence flanking the Mall from either side of the Capitol itself). The named and and numbered streets start low from those big cross streets and then continue to grow.
The grid goes up the alphabet and takes you North (in NW and NE). Then, it continues alphabetically up the two-syllable and then the three syllable street names (still going North). The same thing occurs to the South in SW and SE.
The numbered streets get higher going West in NW and SW and they get higher to the East in NE and SE and they all get to 1 at North/South Capitol STs.
Hope that wasn't more confusing than anything else.