For the fifth consecutive year, D.C. set a tourism record.

There were 17.4 million visitors from the U.S. last year.

Washington, D.C. is the seventh most expensive U.S. city for two people to enjoy an overnight stay and evening out in.

A confused French tourist tried to get from one side of a Metro station to the other by walking across the tracks.

Home is a pretty subjective concept. Where you hang your hat? The place you can always go back to? Where your love lies waiting silently for you? But what about where you spend the largest part of your waking hours? We may like to keep a firm separation between office life and “home” life, but let’s look at the facts: who do you spend more hours awake and in the same room with than that…

Diplomacy is the cornerstone of foreign policy. The relationship between countries can be fragile, but diplomatic exchanges foster valuable insight into each other’s cultures, bring to light areas of mutual cooperation to achieve common interests, and forge stronger economic and political ties. However, when two countries cannot reach an agreement on an area of conflict and the stronger country will sometimes jettison diplomacy and pull out their big stick. Quote of the Week Metro: Tourist…

It has been a light week here at Overheard in D.C.’s cramped quarters, but we understand that most sane people would rather be out enjoying this incredible weather than basking in the warmth of a computer monitor’s glow, sending us emails. However, we were particularly tickled by an email sent in by a reader from the great metropolis to our north, pointing us to his blog entry recounting a recent conversation with a sobriety-challenged, directionally-challenged…

Last October, Metro kicked off a quirky campaign to encourage commuters to travel more safely; basically, they coined new words to describe safety-enhancing practices and shine some light on those whose actions made riding the rails that much more painful a process. They started small, with four words — PlanBdextrous, referring to the ability to map out an alternate route home; Sumpnspicious, those suspicious actions and occurrences that should be reported to Metro officials;…

It’s here. Tourist season is officially upon us. But we’re still light on clueless tourist comments. I know they’re out there — just as I’m sure there are a bunch of Parisians out there laughing about the stupid Americans who couldn’t figure out where the actual Bastille was. That is, when they’re not busy participating in mass demonstrations. So keep keeping your ears open, and email anything interesting, funny, or inscrutable you hear to overheardindc…

The picture above may say it all. They were on the National Mall. They were on the Tidal Basin. Their cars clogged our roads, their baby strollers and large extended families crowded our Metro. They were everywhere. Tourist season has begun, bringing with it the obvious advantage of their disposable income and the just-as-obvious disadvantage of their indisputable presence. As long as they stand right and walk left on Metro escalators, we’re guessing a…