The Library Card to Trump All Others

I happen to be someone who loves being surrounded by books. There’s just something wonderful about the way it feels.

So, yesterday was a beautiful one for me when I received the greatest greatest library card ever – the library of congress reader’s card. It even has my picture on it. As one of the other girls in my program said, it’s got to be universally accepted, right?

That also puts the number of library cards I possess up to 4 for all the places I’ve lived. Home in Oregon, Provo, London, and now the Library of Congress. And they all still work. Bwahaha. I’m hopefully going to get a normal DC library card too, because we all know I can’t make it through the summer without my teen fiction.

The weather outside was even glorious to celebrate the occasion. Although my feet were killing me because I definitely trekked across the city in my HEELS (I walked to work in them, worked in them for 8 hours, went to the art gallery in them, and then walked to the library of congress all the way down the mall and over a few blocks).

But it was ok because my walk looked like this:

(These are with my phone again, because even though I had my camera with me for some reason it didn’t occur to me to use it)

It was the perfect temperature, with the perfect sun.

To give you an idea of what it’s like here, since the magazine I work at is a block away from the White House this is where I ate lunch today:

Of course lunch is naturally way more exciting when there are snipers involved.

More adventures tomorrow with our first day of Friday class guest lecture things.

Hello D.C.

In case anyone was panicking because they weren’t sure if I had succeeded in making it to D.C. for my internship this post is for you.

I arrived here on Friday after trying to cram all of my important belongings into two suitcases after finals, and we’ve already had some fun adventures. I’ve officially seen the white house, capital, Lincoln, a rally, and much more. But I shall show you in photos because that is usually more fun for everyone.

The first night the few guys and girls who were there went on a walk to the mall to see the Lincoln Memorial and such. Unfortunately, none of us remembered to bring a camera so all I have is this, which was taken with my phone. We all know cell phone cameras and night combine to make the best photos.

The next day we went and explored Georgetown (that we maybe two blocks away from). We also walked up to a French Market where we ended up eating at the above pizza place. I think that’s ok because I know for a fact there are pizza places in France.

Also, Amy, on the right, is cool and my roommate for the summer. I know her from journalism stuff.

One of the best things about this city is that there is always something going on, and this week there was the Earth Day climate rally and the mall. So naturally we rounded up a group of people who love the world and went to check it out. We didn’t see all of the performers/speakers, but they included Sting, John Legend, Passion Pit, the director of Avatar, and more. We heard the Reverend Jesse Jackson speak about doing good things for the environment. Now. We also got lots of free stuff, like a frisbee and seeds for an Avatar tree. I hope it’s blue.

We then proceeded to the White House. (It’s a little behind us…)

Fun fact: two of the girls, Talyn in Orange and Becky in plaid, went to London with me. I actually knew a pretty decent amount of people in the program before coming here, just by chance.

Today we saw the capital after class.

And tomorrow we start our internships!

The Belated Birthday Post

Since it’s been almost a month since my 21st birthday, I figured I’d post some pictures of it on here because I can. It was a lot of fun. My sister was in town, and after school and work and such I got to go to Communal (which was delicious) with a lot of cool friends.

Birthday at work at the Daily Universe. Always fun.

Birthday on the way home from work. Also important.

Birthday with sister.

Birthday at Communal. Delicious.

Birthday cake with Sam.

The end.

Mountain Adventures with Guava

I thought I’d let you in on some of my adventures from this weekend, namely Rocky Mountain Goat Viewing Day. I desperately need extra credit for my bio 100 class, so I had to drive all of the way to Little Cottonwood Canyon in Sandy where I literally stood in a parking lot and stared at a mountain. There were a few other people there who were mountain goat experts or something who I overheard saying they recognized the goats from last year. They have skills.

I did get to help these three nice ladies who came late find the goats though. That made me feel pretty cool.

Here are some pictures so you can see what you missed out on. I had brought my camera to use in place of binoculars since I don’t have any and ended up taking pictures too.

Ok, now find the goat! What, you don’t see it?

This is as close as I ever saw them through my lens. I’ve circled them to help you.

This is a majorly cropped photo of one of the goats.

What’s funny to me is that when I worked at the Oregon Zoo I walked by an exhibit of mountain goats every day. They were a hundred times closer, so I think I should have been able to retroactively get even more extra credit for that.

This, as you can clearly tell, is a picture of me and the goat.

I may have quickly gotten bored and started taking pictures of all the other people standing in the parking lot.

It was nice and sunny though so I didn’t mind. I was hoping to get a tan…

This is my faithful car Guava. I’ll have had her for 5 years this August and we’ve gone on many an adventure. I think the $1,500 it took to buy her has gone quite far. Literally.

There was a mall on the way home so I had to stop to get some clothes for DC naturally, especially since there were a lot of sales and I had birthday money. My favorite purchase was the purple Max Studio dress above. It was originally $128 and I got it for $39. My mom raised me and my sister on shopping only at Ross and during sales and she trained me well. I spent $134.28 on what would have originally cost $364.50, according to the tags. (I bought the dress, five shirts, two cardigans and a scarf)

And then I returned to Provo.

The end.

Old Town Pizza

I have three reasons for writing this somewhat random blog post now.

A. I really wish I was in Portland

B. I haven’t written anything for a while and am somewhat desperate for ideas for new posts

C. I ate pizza on three separate occasions today, and it was wonderful

Basically, Old Town Pizza is my favorite place to eat downtown. For those of my lucky friends who are still in Portland you should go there right now so I can be jealous of you as you bask in its glory and eat heavenly pizza.

You may be wondering why it is so awesome. There are, after all, an endless supply of pizza places. None of them are like Old Town though, largely because of the atmosphere. Old Town pizza is actually in the lobby of an old hotel from the 1880, and you order your pizza from the original reception desk. It has a really cozy atmosphere, with eclectic old pieces of furniture that don’t even match. I love it.

Even better, it’s supposed to be haunted. According to the story there was a girl working in the hotel, for a less than desirable profession, who was found murdered in the bottom of the elevator shaft, which now serves as booth that I have ate in. Her name is carved into the brick wall, supposedly by her, and people report seeing a girl dressed in a black dress while they eat (full, much better version of the story here).

It’s also located on top of the Shanghai Tunnels. The tunnels are located under Old Town and China Town and were used back in the day to kidnap drunken men and put them on boats, where they would wake up to find they had essentially been sold into slavery. Tours of the tunnels start at Old Town Pizza. I’ve always wanted to go, and someday I’ll suck it up and stop being so cheap so I can pay to do it.

But if you’re not into that stuff, the pizza is absolutely delicious.

Here are some photos I found on my computer from my many trips there so you can get a better feel for it. Trust, me you want to go there. Love, love, love.

(this last one is in the elevator shaft, in case you wanted to know. It took a lot of convincing to get everyone in there)