Sakura

Check out Arjewtino’s (h/t DCist) photos of tourists taking photos of the cherry blossoms.

The National Cherry Blossom Festival runs through April 13. I’ve only been down to the tidal basin during peak bloom once – on a foggy Tuesday morning last week during the group run. It was pretty serene thanks to the overcast weather and the mist in the air. Still, there were people setting up chairs and tripods at 6:30 am. However, based on my experience on the mall during the Kite Festival a couple of weeks ago (I did not know there were so many families with small children in America), I would not brave the daytime crowds.

Living in a tourist town is a new experience – my favorite game is “spot the Midwesterner” (hint: haircut can be the determining factor). I’ll try to refrain from the usual “those stupid tourists do not know how to stand on the right side of the escalator” complaints (though my short patience fuse does get even shorter when someone stands in between me and a race to the bottom of the escalator) and instead say that I love – LOVE! – it when tourists ask me for directions. Especially when someone asks me where the Metro is while standing within sight of both sides of a station entrance. Sure, they might travel in slow packs that take up the entire sidewalk, huddle together on Metro looking mildly frightened with their wallets strapped safely to their chests and generally have way too much respect for traffic laws, but when someone asks me how to get to X and I can tell them, I get the warm feeling of helping others and validation that walking around with a permascowl does in fact make me look like a local.