After finishing exams and somehow managing to pack up my dorm room and drive back to Wilmington with all my stuff in tow (and about a 1x1 foot hole of visibility out of the back of my car), I got to enjoy home for a week. After my week of relaxation was up, I made sense of my messy room, carried most everything back out to my car, and left for D.C. with mom and dad. After spending the night in Fredericksburg, VA so we could wake up and visit the Fredericksburg Battlefield per dad's request, we drove the final hour to D.C. and got our first glimpse of the Washington monument as we crossed the Memorial Bridge. Then it was on to locating a parking spot on the George Washington University campus (no easy task, let me tell you), braving the registration line to obtain my room key and dorm access card, and finally seeing my room!!!! I was very happy to find myself living in a great space, complete with a spacious bedroom, walk in closet, bathroom, and my very own kitchen (even though it's so narrow that my roommate and I can't even stand in there at the same. Regardless, we've already turned out some pretty good meals from that little space, so we're happy with it.)
After making one final Harris Teeter run with the parents, we dropped my car at its summer home at cousin Rachael's house in Arlington, VA, and I said goodbye and wished them well on their 7 hour drive home. Then I returned to a dorm now inhabited by probably the most amazing roommate I could have possibly ended up with. Her name is Kelly and she just graduated from Georgia Tech as a computer science and economics major (sheesh, way over my head, but sounds really cool!) Basically, the Davidson Myers Briggs personality test system couldn't have matched me up with a better roomie. We both are addicted to coffee, love running, obsessed with cooking and the Food Network, tend to talk way to fast and go off on random tangents at the drop of a hat, and love nothing more than to go to bed early every night. So it's a match made in heaven. She is interning with the Senate Committee on Homeland Security this summer, so it's also very interesting to hear about what she does each day.
Now for the actual reason I am spending my summer in the big city. My internship. Although I usually work 9-5, I started work Monday morning at the leisurely hour of 10:00 since I didn't yet have my official Smithsonian ID badge and couldn't enter my office building before it opened to the public. Being the metro newbie that I am, I left my dorm at 9 just to make sure I wasn't late... and ended up awkwardly wandering around the mall for about 30 minutes. But oh well, I'm getting a system down now and it was better to be safe than sorry :)
I was relieved to have any visions of spending my lunch hours eating by myself dispelled when I met the three other friendly new interns, Maggie, Alexa, and Erica. We were introduced to our program coordinator and then began our orientation, which lasted the majority of the first day. We learned all the in's and out's of being an intern at the Smithsonian, received an official tour, filled out lots and lots of paperwork, and then had a chance to meet our individual department supervisors. Thankfully, one of the interns from my department, Smithsonian National Education Outreach, who had been there since January was around for the whole first week to show me the ropes. So this week was definitely a whirlwind of diving right in to all the projects we're currently working on. We have several teacher workshops coming up the second week of June so we are currently hard at work to finalize all the details of those programs.
But that's my first week in a nutshell! A few random highlights that didn't make it in there:
- Going for a run and passing the White House
- Choosing to get off a few metro stops early and walk home from work when the metro broke down... wearing long pants... in 90 degree weather
- Visiting the zoo and the National Cathedral
- Exploring Georgetown and making my first ever trip to Whole Foods!!!
- Receiving my official Smithsonian ID and finding out about all the sweet discounts I get
- Eating lunch at the swanky Native American Museum Café with the other interns
- Walking probably around 25 miles total throughout the course of the week
- Forgetting to transfer from the blue to orange metro line at Rossyln station... and realizing it once I got to the Pentagon. Fun stuff.
Well that's it for now! More to come once some more stuff actually happens to me :)
