6/9/12
Well, as you may or may not have noticed, I have not posted form Friday. After careful consideration, I have deemed a blog post unnecessary for Friday. I'll give you a quick synopsis: I went to work, I read, I came home, I Skyped for somewhere around 2 hours, and I watched a couple episodes of How I Met Your Mother before calling it a night. A group of us were going to go exploring on Saturday, so I wanted to make sure I was well-rested for our adventure!
And that was my Friday, very chill, but very nice.
Now, on to the exciting stuff: Saturday. Now that I actually have individuals from KIP reading my blog, I guess I can't reveal my true feelings toward my fellow co-workers (only kidding, they are wonderful people!).
Our designated meeting place was the Smithsonian Metro Station by the USDA. This was a terrible life decision on all of our parts. While we had a rough idea of the day's agenda, we had neglected one very important aspect: planning for the crowd. If this had been the regular, touristy, DC crowd, this would not have been an issue. We were fully prepared for a DC crowd. We were not, however, prepared for the 45 million Girl Scouts that descended upon the Capitol.
I started out my trip by driving to the Court House Metro stop (again, they Metro is doing line work between East and West Falls Church, effectively cutting me off from fully and efficiently utilizing the metro) and then riding into the city. Being a Saturday, this business-district stop was not very active. I was quite happy with the empty train. I had a seat, not a lot of loud individuals, it was going to be a good day. All was calm and quite until I reached the next stop-that is when, like the locust swarming Egypt, the Girl Scouts swarmed the train. It was madness. My quiet, roomy car became a madhouse filled by green-and-brown sashed-and-vested girls. And this was just the start. Our day would be filled with long lines at turnstiles as troop leaders handed out day passes to giggling girls, crowds of loud and silly merit badges were seen no matter which direction you looked. It was quite the experience.
Well, on to the fun stuff--unless you find girl scouts fun, then more power to you. Not exactly my cup'o'tea, believe it or not.
Like I was saying, to the fun stuff. We started off the day with ideas of touring the Smithsonians. After meeting up (we had planned on meeting up at 11, but because of all the girl scouts, etc., we ended up all finally getting together around 11:30, oh well!), we headed towards, what I like to call, Museum Row. There was not a very rigid itinerary for the day--or more truthfully, a set itinerary at all--so the group just started wandering. Upon arrival at the Castle (the Smithsonian Castle is the "base" of all the other museums), we diverted to one of the art galleries next to it--believing it to be under the Girl Scout's radar. Our assumption was correct, as the art gallery was very quiet and mostly empty.
While the art was interesting, the group was a little preoccupied with getting to know one another. Certain individuals (who will remain anonymous, *coughcoughcoughjeffcoughcoughcough*) were continually discussing life events and simply neglecting the art. After about 30 minutes of mindless wandering--I refused to start doing any in depth reading, as I would just want to stay and read everything (do not go to a museum with me unless you really want to appreciate the history!)--the group decided that maybe it was best to meander elsewhere.
Apart from loosing 2 or 3 members of our group in an attempt to use the restroom, we made it back out to the mall safe and sound. By this time it was after noon and a number of us started lobbying heavily for food (myself being a ranking member of this group). After a nice little stroll through the Statue Gardens (or something like that) and a side-trip to the large water fountain, the group headed towards Chinatown.
I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting when we headed to Chinatown, and maybe we just didn't get very far into the area, but I was a little disappointed. The only difference between the Mall area and Chinatown was the Chinese Characters underneath the regular characters on restaurant signs. Oh well. Maybe I need to adventure to Chinatown sometime.
In China town we did what any good group of American interns would do--we ate at a chain sandwich shop, Potbelly's. The food was good, I thoroughly enjoyed my sandwich, that's for sure. Since our group actually picked up a member, we had to divide and conquer--that is, sit at different tables. It was nice to just be sitting in the AC and eating, it was starting to warm up outside.
Upon the completion of our meal, it was time to wander back to the Smithsonians. We had every intention of seeing the American History museum (since it has lots of fun things in it like the Ruby Slippers and Kermit the Frog, crucial points in American history). We wandered through the Smithsonian Castle (which really was just a hodgepodge of miscellaneous stuff) and then headed to our next target.
The arrival at the American History Museum was as far as we got: the line was out the door and around the corner. It was hot, the sun was intense, and we were not going to spend our afternoon standing in that line. We wandered down to the Natural History Museum, which, in it's defense, had a shorter line, but still a line too long for our tastes.
Group deliberation took place. Garrett pulled out his handy-dandy map ("I'm a map, I'm a map, I'm a map...Thanks Emily, that's still stuck in my head) and we decided to head to the National Gallery. If I had to guess, I would say this is where we spent the majority of our day, at least in comparison to all the other places we visited. The gallery was awesome.
As we went through the museum we hit the Dutch and Italian artists...or at least a small portion of them. I thoroughly enjoyed the older (1300-1600) Italian artists. Every piece that I saw was centered around something religious. Christ, the Saints, the Holy Family-all of it was beautiful!
In addition to the amazing pictures of Christ and his followers, there was a picture of de Vinci on display. Apparently it was the precursor to the Mona Lisa. I really enjoyed the art gallery. One of these days I need to go with a small group or on my own so I can have a little more time to appreciate the art and the museums.
After the museum, we lost a couple members and it was decided to go somewhere we could all sit down and relax. We headed over near the Navy something Metro stop and went to a sportsbar to watch the Germany-Portugal soccer game (and whatever else was on, which included a baseball game, a basketball game, and a horse race, lol).
After about an hour or a little more of hanging out at (I wish I could remember what the name was) the sportsbar, I decided I was hungry and I wasn't feeling sportsbar food. I was hoping for something a little more restaurant like. (By this point, we had lost another part of our group, but we gained a couple other guys).
So, we jumped on the Metro and headed to DuPont Circle, which just happened to be a very exciting part of town. There was a LGBTQ event going on. It was quite the site.
After an eventful walk around the circle, yes, DuPont Circle in a circle, we stopped at the Front Page. It is a really snazzy restaurant with old front pages of newspapers all around the restaurant. The food was good and the conversation was incredibly interesting. The only downside: our food took awhile because of the rally outside. Even this couldn't dampen the atmosphere of our conversation. In fact, until the waiter came to mention that he was sorry our food was taking so long, I hadn't even realized it had been awhile.
When we finished up dinner, we lost all but 4 of us, and went to Claredon to hang out. We were going to meet-up with some other interns, but after hanging out for awhile, and with the Metro taking so long, we finally decided to call it a night.
Since I had to drive to Court House earlier in the day, all that was left to do was run a couple of my friends back to GMU and then I called it a night. After a long day of adventuring (which was far more detailed than what I recorded, because I'm lazy!), it was time to call it a night: especially since I would be getting up too early for my tastes on a Sunday.
Well, there ya have it, my second Sunday as an Intern!
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