I was walking by the white house and a young man approaches me asking if I knew about the derivatives. Of course i didn't. And he was pleased to hear that in order to be able to explain me this theory about this huge amount of cash which supposedly is kept in the banks from all over the world and that will probably create the real financial crash, the final crash of all the monetary and economic system as we know it. Is that true or false, does not really matter. What it does matter is the fact that he was believing in it, and sometimes in the financial world what you believe it is going to happen is more important than what it is really happening. This kind of virtual reality which materialise on the sidewalks and the offices of the Federal Capital of the United States of America. It is impressive that just few square kilometers contain the main economic and political institutions of the USA and of the entire world. And is impressive to see how this machine works as a daily routine, in a very calm and almost relaxed atmosphere, where people uses one of the few efficient metro systems of the urban north america, enter anonymous buildings which are normal office spaces which no one would pay attention to their architecture if there would not be signs at the entrance indicating that that is actually the "World Bank Group" or the "International Monetary Fund" Headquarters.
Capitol_city #1
The presidential mall. Apotheosis of the nation-building of the United States of America. The National Memory here is not only represented (mise-en-scene), but it is basically created

Lobby_city #2
In Brussels there is a peculiar place called "place luxembourg" where you can find all the assistants and the interns of the European Parliament having their "happy hour" after work. Big place for encounters and networking, and again lobbying. Washington D.C. is a big "Place Luxembourg", and Du Pont Roundabout is the centre that emanates this big bang of relatively cheap beers and drinks after working hours. That's where most of the young diplomats and burocrats get their time off after having climbed the "stairway to heaven", which is the escalator of one of the deepest metro station of the city. The other side of the lobby_city is there.
Capitol_city #2
Adams-Morgan is now a place for going out. A bit like Du Pont but more racially mixed. the name comes from the one of the first racially mixed schools in the USA which resulted from the merging of a white school and a black school. I like to think that today the historical meaning of this merging is celebrated through the melting pot of the bars there.
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