Day 82/365 - Tourorists

Tourorist (toor-or-ist) noun - a particularly annoying tourist.

It was fairly warm out again today and given that hardly anyone was in the office (and especially given that I really didn't feel like doing any work), I went for a walk on the National Mall. Normally when I do that I just do a loop from the American Indian Museum down to the American History Museum. Today though I went all the way down to the Lincoln Memorial and back. Yep, not a whole lot of work got done today. Well, not by me anyhow.

There were loads of tourists out on the Mall. For the most part the tourists that come to Washington aren't too bad. Generally I only find them annoying when they're getting in the way -- such as when they stand on the left of the Metro escalators or when they come to a sudden stop at the top/bottom of escalator in order to get their bearings, meanwhile the escalator keeps moving and people start piling up behind them. I really hate that. That and when they let their obstreperous offspring treat the poles inside the Metro cars like jungle gyms.

I frequently wonder if the locals find me annoying when I go somewhere on a trip. I try to remember to avoid doing the sorts of things that would aggravate me, but I'm sure I slip sometimes and cause them to shake their heads and mutter under their breath about me like I do about our tourists.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)