Conversations About America with a New Friend
The biking tour of the National Mall in Washington, DC. This is why we talk to strangers, to make new friends and learn stuff about ourselves.
A couple months ago, I pet sat for a stranger in Washington DC. This adventure allowed me to be equal parts tourist and “local” and made for a cool, if tiring, way to experience our nation’s capital.
On one of my outings, I rode the bus* three miles to the heart of the place for a whirlwind biking tour of the National Mall. I’m hoping you will still be my friend if I share with you that, until this trip, I did not realize that the National Mall was not a shopping center. (In my defense and to salvage some of my self-respect, I’d just like to point out that we do have an actual shopping mall named The Mall of America...)
We were a small group and there wasn’t a lot of time for conversation at each national monument or as we rode between them. But Sharan, a new friend from India, and I found time to chat. He had lived in a large town in Virgi…