The Left Behind

For some reason even though I’m doing awesome things all the time (for example, memorial day weekend I headed up to New York to stay in Chelsea Warren’s awesome apartment and play with other lovely Daily Universe people), I am in a blogging rut.

So, I will once again discuss my love of my Converse. I couldn’t possibly justify bringing all of them with me to D.C. Only the the newest light bright blue ones won the trip.

Here they all are together. They are the best shoes. I want every color ever.

This is my first most favorite pair. I acquired them sophomore year of high school. And I still wear them. All of the time.

I also miss this.

I’ll write about something more substantial soon.

Philly Cheese Steaks and the Constitution

Last weekend we (the Washington Seminar program) took a trip to Valley Forge and Philadelphia to see cool historic things.

Here are all of the pictures I took (I brought my nice camera) in an album you should click on:

View Full Album

And here are some with narration:

This was our tour guide for Valley Forge.

These are some people I like.

This is Independence Hall, where the Constitution was signed.

I was distracted by the pretty chandelier inside.

Also, the liberty bell.

And the perfect authentic Philly Cheese Steak for lunch from Jim’s.

Eating it looked like this.

The line to get in was long but worth it.

This shiny wall made out of broken plates was distracting too.

And doesn’t this look like the tower of terror?

There was a cool park where cool things were happening and Annique made friends.

There was also a wedding photo shoot my sister would have liked.

Apparently dressing up is normal here.

Overall the city was fantastic. We had a great time and there is still a ton more to explore.

For more stalker photos of my group mates like the ones below please go to the album. There are about 170 pictures in there, and I didn’t necessarily post the best ones in my blog…

Fin.

Winner!

Since I never ever win anything I figured I had to write about this. While I was at the Embassy open house shindig they had a drawing for a year membership to the Rosetta Stone online package (usually$1,200) and I actually won! So now I’m going to learn French. It seemed like a good idea because I felt like a total idiot when I could only communicate by pointing to things while in Paris.

So basically I’m excited. I’ve done some of the Spanish Rosetta Stone (got it for a great price on craigslist last summer) and it’s thoroughly addicting.

Here’s a picture of me with the actual Rosetta Stone:

(It’s bizarre that will have been two years ago this fall…)

Embassy Hopping

As college students, we are always looking for free food. This weekend we discovered an excellent source for this: the embassies. Apparently every so often they have open houses where anyone can come in, walk around and eat samples of food from their countries and such. It’s pretty sweet.

We only went into a few of them (it was hot and the lines were long), but here are my awards for the ones we went to:

Most party-like: tie between Columbia (salsa dancing out front with live band) and Trinidad and Tobago (you could hear the music from down the street and they had awesome dancers in bright dress)

Coolest building: definitely Columbia. It was so warm and inviting I wanted to stay forever. Indonesia was pretty fancy too.

Most free stuff: Australia. We got tote bags, Australia (children’s) tattoos, pens, kangaroo stickers, tickets to the wine tasting… That last one may have been an accident. Don’t worry, we didn’t use them.

Here are some pictorials: (I didn’t take many… my bad. Other people have more, so just wait for some facebook action)

Columbia. Note Australia tattoo.

Entryway of Indonesia.

Cool stuff. I want them to do it again soon.

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.