It was time to leave New York and head to Washington, D.C. That day, it was raining heavily—which wasn’t so bad, since I’d be spending half the day on a train. The ride on the Northeast Regional was pleasant. The Amfleet I passenger cars, though definitely old-school, were comfortable. First introduced in 1973, these cars are now over fifty years old! The locomotives, however, are modern Siemens ACS-64’s.

Moynihan Train Hall at Penn Station was fairly standard. Unfortunately, there was nowhere to sit— not even at the Starbucks in the corridor leading to the train hall. The food court seating wasn’t accessible early in the morning either. I don’t like the American grab-and-go food culture.

Upon arrival, I walked from Washington Union Station to Chinatown in search of a cheap meal. By the time I got there, I was soaked—I had completely underestimated the amount of rain. Fortunately, the restaurant had rice congee on the menu, which was exactly what I needed. It was served in plastic containers, with plastic cutlery and soy sauce packets. Why so much plastic?

My bed in the U Street Hostel in U Street Corridor was indeed a capsule. I had to leave my suitcase outside the capsule because there was really no space. Other than that, it’s comfortable. No electrical socket but an USB-A type charger. After checking in I walked around in the rain but I became too cold, found a bookshop and bought The Constitution of the United States and The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs, a 2006 memoir written by Madeleine Albright. I spent a few hours reading before falling asleep.

My capsule hostel was not far from Howard University. I tried to visit the Barnes & Noble located in the university building, but it had closed hours earlier than the posted time. Howard University is a Historically Black College and University (HBCU). This means it was founded before 1964 with the primary mission of educating African American students at a time when they were largely excluded from most other universities and institutions of learning.

I hadn’t realized how deep Washington’s African American history runs. In 1970, over 71% of the city’s population identified as Black. By 2000, that percentage had dropped to just over 40%. This shift is part of what’s known as the New Great Migration—a reversal of the previous 60-year trend of Black Americans moving north, with many now returning to the South.

Smithsonian Institution

On my first day in Washington, the weather was dry, but the morning began with low-hanging clouds. I spent some time walking around the National Mall, as it was still too early to visit the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, which was high on my list.

I had some time to track down the filming location of the ‘Department of Pre-Crime’ from Minority Report, which was shot at the Reagan Trade Center on Pennsylvania Avenue. We’re not quite living in that science fiction future yet, but modern artificial intelligence algorithms, when applied to government data, can lead to similar outcomes. U.S. citizens are likely already living in that once-futuristic timeline.

Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum

This museum is absolutely mind-blowing. It holds so many iconic originals: the 1903 Wright Flyer, the Apollo 11 Command Module used by Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins, and Neil Armstrong during the first lunar landing, moon rocks, and much more. Watching the timeline of the Apollo program—interspersed with music from the 1960s—it was hard not to get emotional. The first moon landing took place just a few months before I was born. My father may have been at sea, and my mother, seven months pregnant with me, probably didn’t even have access to a television. What was the biggest miracle of July 1969?

It took just six years to develop the first military version of the Wright Flyer: the 1909 Wright Military Flyer, the world’s first military airplane. This is humanity at its worst. The military has always been quick to adopt new inventions. Coincidentally, there were also only six years between the discovery of nuclear fission in 1938 and the first detonation of a nuclear bomb.

Koshari

I was lucky that day—there was a food market at the Reagan Trade Center on Pennsylvania Avenue. After checking out the other stalls, I knew I had to try the koshari. These guys had all three traditional sauces: a mild tomato sauce, da’ah (a tangy garlic-vinegar sauce), and shatta (a chili-garlic sauce). Most online recipes only include the tomato sauce. Best of all, they offered karkadeh, the hibiscus drink popular across the Arab world. I ordered it in Arabic, which they noticed. I held back on the ice and was glad it wasn’t overly sweet. The koshari was exceptionally good. I first drank karkadeh in the former North Eastern Province of Kenya, which is predominantly inhabited by ethnic Somalis.

The White House

It would feel strange not to walk up to the White House, even though you can’t get very close. The first president I remember was Jimmy Carter, followed by Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and now Trump again—the first president to run the government like both a mafia boss and an oligarch. I recall the Cold War, the humanitarian interventions during the Clinton years, and the war for regime change—or access to oil—in Iraq. Yet the way Donald Trump runs the government goes far beyond what’s normal in a liberal democracy.

“What? Huh? Oil? Who said something about oil? Bitch you cooking? Me and my cabinet agree that that area is definitely right for regime change.”

— Dave Chappelle Show, President Black Bush

National Museum of American History

The National Museum of American History houses artifacts spanning everything from transportation to culture. There was an exhibition on U.S. democracy, which included an interactive section. A young Black girl tried to answer the multiple-choice questions about voting and soon sighed, “I’m never going to vote!” I looked at her and said, “Please do vote—it’s important.” I missed the chance to add that if everyone had voted in 2024, her president might have been Kamala Harris, but that thought came to me too late.

A Vice President Kamala Harris mug was available in the museum shop at the National Archives Building. They were also selling National Archives socks featuring Donald Trump or Melania Trump.

The 2 Live Crew’s album and song As Nasty As They Wanna Be were briefly banned in the USA in 1990 after a Florida court ruled the album legally obscene. In the mid-1980s, the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) published a list of songs they considered offensive, including Prince’s “Little Red Corvette” and Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust.” In 1985, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) began placing parental advisory stickers on certain albums to avoid government censorship. Today, the Banned in the USA vinyl has become a museum piece.

My hostel was right in the U Street Corridor, known as “Black Broadway” in the 1920s. Legends like Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, and Miles Davis all performed in its clubs. But the area was more than just music and entertainment—it was home to the city’s oldest African American-owned bank and hundreds of black-owned businesses, including law firms. Following the 1968 riots after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., the neighborhood fell into decline.

Jack Rose Dining Saloon

Apart from the mandatory drinks at the Broadway Comedy Club, I hadn’t visited a bar yet. I noticed a whiskey bar within walking distance of my little capsule hotel. They were said to have 3,000 bottles of whiskey and bourbon in stock, with some of the pricier bourbons costing up to $65 per glass. I rarely drink whiskey and was worried I wouldn’t be able to taste the difference between a $65 glass and a $15 glass. However, the cocktail menu prices seemed average.

I ordered a Manhattan, since I had never tried that classic cocktail, invented in the late 1880s. According to the IBA recipe, it contains rye whiskey, sweet vermouth, and Angostura bitters. It was good, but the bar was loud, and there was no one to strike up a conversation with. So, I stuck to just one drink. When I entered, the bartender swiped my credit card to open a tab, which puzzled me since I intended to—and did—pay in cash.