Saturday, January 14, 2012

First Week in the City

This first week has been really exciting.  We did a scavenger hunt ALL over DC on Tuesday.  We pretty much walked from 9:30 am to 5 pm, and I got the worst blisters ever.  It was a lot of fun though, and we got to see a lot of things that we wouldn't normally be looking for.  It helped us get to know each other and the different neighborhoods around town.
Presidents Mural at Mama Ayesha's
Wednesday we toured the Library of Congress and the Holocaust Museum.  We all got library cards, which is kind of awesome.  I can go study in the Library of Congress whenever I want now!  I feel like more of a true Washingtonian.  The Holocaust Museum was pretty moving.  I've wanted to go there for so long, and it did not disappoint.  We spent all afternoon there.
The next day we went to the American History museum, where we looked through and also got to talk to the curator of entertainment, pop culture, and sports.  It was really interesting to hear how the museum acquires artifacts and how they decide what is displayed or stored.  It sounds like quite a struggle for the museums to compete with private collectors for items.  I ended up having a free afternoon while everyone else was busy with work stuff so I went to the grocery store by myself.  It was good to have some alone time and get comfortable going on the metro by myself for a change.

Yesterday was my first day of work!  Holy moly!  I was expecting to be really overwhelmed and stressed out, but it was actually a really nice start.  Everyone in the office is very nice and friendly.  It was a pretty chill day since the house wasn't in session.  The other intern is from Australia, so it was really interesting to chat with her about different cultural differences and things, and she was really helpful.  Next week the house goes back into session so I'm sure it will be different and much busier.  I'm so lucky to get to work for Clyburn.  He has an office in the rayburn building and another one in the capitol since he is the assistant democratic leader so I'm excited to spend some time in both places.  I probably won't go into a lot of detail about work things on here, but I did hear some talk of part of my job being giving tours of the capitol, which is very exciting to a debate nerd like me :]

Today I walked around with two of my roommates to the Thomas Jefferson, George Mason, FDR, MLK Jr., and Korean war memorials.  I actually had never seen the FDR or MLK Jr. memorials before so that was really cool.  I think the Thomas Jefferson memorial is probably my favorite.  I love how it's out on the water.  It's really gorgeous.
So that's the lowdown on this week.  It's been busy and fun, but now it's time to get to business a bit too with the internship and classes starting up.

2 comments:

  1. My favorite city ever. If we come up this spring, I want you to show us around!

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