National Post

When rock candy beats moon rocks for excitement

- MARNI SOUPCOFF

The traveller sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see. — G.K. Chesterton

My family’s trip to the Washington, D.C., area may be the least successful effort my husband and I have made to educate our twin girls since the time we took them to the Nutcracker.

One spent the ballet snoring. The other spent half of it in the lobby, having left the theatre for the bathroom 1½ minutes into the second act. (Note to parents considerin­g taking their children to the Nutcracker: When they say no re-entry once the performanc­e has started, they make no exceptions for sixyear-olds with pea-sized bladders. I think my daughter was counting on this.)

In D.C., we took our daughters, now 7, to the National Air and Space Museum on the Mall, which their older brother loves — as does every single other child on the planet, according to the tourist guides.

No so our girls. One of them had a minor anxiety attack in the planetariu­m. “Look, there’s the sun,” I said, patting her on the back and trying to drown out the narrator, who had begun talking about planet-eating death stars. “Why does it have to be so dark in here?” she moaned.

Our other daughter became obsessed with rock candy after spotting a little girl eating some in the museum. “We’re not here for candy,” my husband said. “Dad,” our daughter said one minute later, pointing to the gift shop, “since you were asking about where we could get rock candy, I wanted to tell you that it’s right there.”

The enthusiasm and awe my husband and I had expected from the girls upon seeing the 1903 Wright Flyer or the Apollo astronauts’ space suits? The excitement we’d hoped for from the girls upon touching authentic moon rock? It all came to pass. Only it was 10 minutes after we’d left the museum.

Turns out McDonald’s locations in D.C. have Hawaiian Punch on tap at the soda fountain machine. Girls’. Minds. Blown. A good thing too, because the apple juice at D.C. McDonald’s restaurant­s tastes funny. They don’t tell you that in the tourist guides.

I relate this anecdote not to suggest that our girls are poor travellers, nor to imply that they are uncurious. I wish, rather, to make the opposite point: that our girls are better travellers than we are.

When we all got lost walking to the National Museum of American History, my husband and I started insulting each other’s GPS’s and complainin­g about the unbearable heat and certain people’s inability to regulate their body temperatur­e, respective­ly. We took refuge in the air conditioni­ng of the Smithsonia­n Institutio­n’s Freer Gallery, where a statue of the Hindu god Shiva manifested as Nataraja (Lord of the Dance) held the girls’ interest for a good 45 seconds.

“He’s dancing on a baby!” our daughters said.

“The baby represents ignorance,” I said.

“He’s dancing on a baby!” our daughters said.

They asked if they could feed some statues some rice. (My explanatio­n of Buddhist offerings was imperfect.) They memorized some of the ritual Hindu and Buddhist hand gestures. They relayed what the statues were expressing by examining the statues’ gestures. They asked us why we’d dragged them there and when they could go back to the hotel to play Pokemon games on the laptop.

Variations of the experience were repeated several times over the trip.

We went on a 45-minute “monument tour” on the Potomac River, which held our girls’ interest on only two occasions. First, when one of them clued in that the watertreat­ment plant we were passing had to do with “poopoo.” Next when our same daughter suggested that the top-secret research facilities we were passing involved the U.S. government “spying on people going poo-poo.” Money well spent.

But then, on our walk from the harbour in Georgetown to the Metro stop, the girls noticed a wrecked car, pink flowers with sliver-thin petals, aggressive traffic, a bird we don’t have at home, and a person living in a tent. On the Metro ride back, they spotted a trail in the suburbs that they thought looked ripe for a picnic. And we all experience­d a half-hour delay at the National Airport stop for track maintenanc­e, an authentic D.C. experience these days.

My husband and I may have failed in getting the girls to see what we’d brought them to see in D.C. But the girls succeeded in seeing what they saw. And that’s as good as any trip can be.

 ?? GABRIEL SCHROER ?? When you’re seven years old, rock candy can grab your attention as much as anything.
GABRIEL SCHROER When you’re seven years old, rock candy can grab your attention as much as anything.
 ??  ??

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Canada