Well, one full week is gone and passed here in the big city of DC. I'm starting to feel settled in at my cute little apartment with my roomie, Kelsey. She's also interning at the same place I am - we are working for the government. Here's little peak into my place:
This is the living room. You can see his nice TV (the guy we're subletting from), the front windows that let in beautiful light. Do you see the comical mini bar? It's right by the TV at the edge of the living room as it fades into the kitchen area. Yeah, this opera singer has quite the taste.
Here's a view from our front door, the kitchen is on the left.
And the hallway to the bathroom & the master bedroom where my roommate stays.
The bathroom - isn't funny there's a sign on the door "Pipi Room"
Here's my bedroom, it's located right off the hallway, first door on the right. It's a bit small, but nice in the morning with the curtains open. There were all these strange old photos of boy's sports teams on the wall in between the 2 windows, so I took all but one down and put up a few of my things.
A beautiful view of our cute little patio with a plethera of plants to water. We've enJoyed a meal out on the patio, taking in the evening air.
So there you have it! Our cute little place.
Here are a few photos of myself around the city - a few with Kelsey, some of the 4th of July celebration, and some with friends from the church I go to here - we watched the World Cup together, I wore my red dress in support of Spain, who FInAlLy pulled it off in the second overtime!
What else? Well, on my first day it took us 45 minutes to get there with a delay from the metro and leaving our last stop the wrong direction, which equaled more walking. We arrived right on the button and listened to policies & procedures from our Intern Coordinator. She took us around and showed us where some important offices were in the buildings and then took us to the Capitol where the Capitol Visitor's Center has just recently been built. It's amazing! All underground, it's the largest addition to the Capitol - and from outside, you can't even tell - so the aesthetics of the Capitol are just the same as before - stunning. On Wednesday, we went through a whole day of training on the Capitol; there's quite a bit of history to know with all the statues and in the rooms. The VERY next day, myself and another intern gave our first tour to Kansas constituents. It went fairly well, and I'll be eager to give a second tour this week sometime. The rest of the week, we went to various trainings and met a few more staff members. Sadly, our intern coordinator is ill and might be gone for a week or so - but the Press Secretary who is now overseeing us is quite kind and informative. They say it'll become busier this week because Senate is now in session.
Actually, today we went into the Senate gallery and listened for a while. They were discussing the surprising move of Obama in appointing Dr. Berwick as the head of CMS without allowing a congressional hearing. There was no vote, no discussion, no opportunity to ask the head of this organization, who will implement the new health care reform bill questions about his ideas and methods. Just an appointment! The Republicans are outraged, and the democrats seem to halfway support the move of the Administration, but they wanted to in a sense "interview" him too. Later this week, a Senator from Kansas will speak on the Boeing dilemma - whether the Air Force will hire them to make the fuel tankers or outsource to Airbus. I'm looking forward to hearing this debate.
So far, life here has been good. I've spent time getting to know some of the great people at the church I attend - it's called EC Embassy. We visited Old Town (as you can see in a few photos), and saw Despicable Me. Last weekend, we went to the Smithsonian Folklife festival, which was enJoyable and Kels and I saw the National Gallery of Art - one of my favorites. The fourth of July itself was quite fun. It started with awakening at Gina's house (one of the girls at the church) - we had a sleepover and went to church together. Afterwards, a few of us went to Georgetown and ate at a cute little pita place. We took our yummy take out food to the river and sat on the edge, enJoying our meal. It was lovely! Then we had a chance to go to the parade on Constitutional for a while - that was pretty neat. I took some photos on my phone, but I'll have to figure out how to put them on my computer and here! ;) Let's see, one of the guys we were with drove me back and then I got ready for the 4th of July party. Kelsey's mom was here visiting; so all cute in our dresses, we embarked to meet Olivia. We ate a nice meal in Georgetown and then headed to the Law Firm where her dad's lawyer friend invited us for an evening of refreshments and fireworks. It was beautiful! From the 10th floor we could see the White House, Washington Monument - and the mall stacked with people, and then the stunning fireworks at eye level. Since the metros were crammed with people headed back home, we walked back to our place - 1.68 miles. Thankfully, we broke it up with a stop at a hip bar. Overall, it was a great way to celebrate Independence Day in the Nation's Capitol...just kinda strange not to light off any fireworks of my own.
Well, I have a very early morning tomorrow, so I'd better wrap this up! I'm going to see a chiropractor in Fairfax, and the commute is an hour and 15 there and then an hour to work. Thanks for your prayers - God is proving Himself faithful here and I'm definitely learning a lot.
