The Czar, family, and retinue has returned from a myriad purpose trip to Washington, DC, where the weather was superb (no rain while there). The Czar has been to DC innumerable times, but still has the odd spot of trouble navigating around the City even still; however, that said, no fatalities occurred.

Compare and contrast.

While there, we took in a ridiculous amount of sites and stops, some of which the Czar has never seen before (the Teddy Roosevelt Memorial), and some of which he has not seen in 30 years or more (the Jefferson Memorial). The Czar would like to make the following un-PC but utterly spot-on observations about people.

Dear Europeans, how dare you lecture Americans about manners. What a fat lot of rude, uncouth badgers you are. Some advice:

Stop pushing your way through crowds. Americans will be happy to make room for you if you just wait one more damned second. Not everything is the flipping Sudatenland, okay? You don’t need to roll over everyone.

There is no reason to hitchhike your way through a Smithsonian building, so please consider leaving your two-hundred pound backpack behind at your hostel, or whatever lefty place you crash at night. We colonials may be unable to name Eero Saarinen’s first wife, but neither do we swing our laundry into exhibits and other visitors like cretin toddlers.

Hey, glad you want a picture in front of that exhibit. But could you please not position yourselves so that you block the only exit out of a gallery? Americans, curiously, are happy to wait while you take a photo, but we get a little annoyed when you spend twelve minutes setting up a shot, and then proceed to take about forty-six photos in succession while the crowd waits for you. There seems to be little point doing that caliber of photographic spread when the teenage girl in the center of the shot badly needs a shave.

What the hell is your obsession with forming human pyramids everywhere you go?

Thank you, repeatedly, for ingressing through the exit and egressing through the entrance of something, so that the crowd has to continuously climb around you because you’re too thick to realize you are progressing backwards through something.

And now, to that Chinese teenager who shoved our seven-year-old out of your way so you could see the Hope Diamond a bit closer, yes: that was your Czar who smacked you really hard in the back and scared the piss out of your friend. Thank you for immediately looking at our feet in deference and apologizing to the boy, because the Czar was a little too winded to pick you up off the ground by your neck and explain your transgression futher.

To the American tourists we encountered in DC:

Thank you for removing your hats in the presence of the original Star Spangled Banner, Old Glory, at the Smithsonian. And to whichever teenager that was who spontaneously broke out singing a quiet “America the Beautiful,” nice touch. That really choked us up.

Speaking of choking, whoever the guy in the white baseball cap was who raced up and Heimliched the elderly woman choking on the sandwich, thanks. You saved her life, and you neither hesitated to help her, nor did you even stay for her thanks. In addition to that, you impressed the boys at how fast you need to be to save someone’s life. Wherever you worldessly disappeared to within a second of saving her, the world is better to have a guy like you in it. Someone’s mother made it home okay.

Thanks to all the people who acted so solemnly at the World War II, Korean, and Vietnam War Memorials. And to the many kids who really understood the seriousness of them. Also, a special nod to the older American man of Vietnamese ancestry who silently and grimly took a photo of our seven-year-old kneeling in prayer at the Vietnam Memorial and then bowed to our wife in respect.

The Czar wants to thank the hundreds of little kids who repeatedly said words like “please,” “thank you,” and “excuse me” throughout the entire trip. Manners matter, and your frequent display of them makes the Czar confident that this country will rebound to a future glory.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.