Sunday: Jessica and I slept in on the wonderful Father's Day. Jill went up to her grandparents house to have a huge meal, so Jess and I were on our own. We went grocery shopping (which we should never do together) and then we met up with Jess's friend Whitney. We decided to meet up with her in the late afternoon and head up to her apartment (which is really just an extended stay hotel, but it is nice) because we wanted to go swimming and Whitney has a pool!
Once we got up there, we went shopping at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. By this point, our air conditioning was broken, so I decided to buy a FAN. That was the big purchase of the day... mostly because we would have died without it. So Jess, Whitney and I ordered pizza and we had a little pool/pizza party. It was a really relaxing afternoon/evening. We even got to watch some TV! (which is a rare treat for those of us without TVs).
Monday: Our office is so amazing. They set up a tour of the National Archives for us that was a before hours, private, behind the scenes tour of the Archives. It totally reminded me of National Treasure (the first one, where he breaks in to the back of the archives to steal the Declaration of Independence). Haha... I am such a dork. Other than that, it was really cool. We got to see lots of exciting things there, including the first congressional record, a lot of letters from George Washington (originals!), and, of course, the first MAD magazine! That was our super cool Monday. I think one of the best parts was that we got to go into work at 11 (which was both good and bad... I love the office, but at the same time, I like to get out and about... and not stare at a computer screen all day).
Tuesday: My tour day! I actually had 2 tours scheduled. The first one was a family with really cute kids. Unfortunately, the Senate does not allow children under the age of 6 into the gallery... so the poor little girl didn't get to go in (I'm sure she didn't really care, but one of her parents had to be with her at all times, which made things slightly inconvenient).
In the afternoon, I had to give another tour, which was supposed to be a big group of 10 plus one other guy. The group of ten was actually a reschedule from the day before because they didn't show, so by the time we figured out that they weren't coming, it was about 2:20, which meant that there were a million people in the capitol. If we had left when the one guy got there, we would have beat the crowds. Oh well. It's a lot easier to move fast through the capitol when you only have 1 other person instead of 15 people following you around. After that tour, we took some pictures for the Intern Website... aren't we special? I really didn't get much research work done, but I did get to get out and about a lot!
Wednesday: Probably the best day of the week! I got to shadow the senator all day (well, sort of). Jessica and I went with him to 4 of his meetings. The first one we got to walk with him (and ride on the Senator Only elevator!). It was really interesting because on the way there, one of his staffers basically briefed him on the hearing, which was the Iran Sanctions Act of 2008 markup session (or something to that effect). It was really cool because it is a really important bill when discussing the war on terror/war in Iraq/potential war in Iran. Mr. Bingaman even introduced an amendment, which was really cool to see because the senators actually debated it there in front of us. Too bad the amendment didn't pass (15-4...), but it was still REALLY awesome to see!
Right when we got back, he was supposed to be meeting with a school group of constituents from NM, so we ran back and met with them for about 10 minutes (long enough for them to have a small Q & A session). We also got to meet with some people from Alaska who wanted him to cosponsor a bill (once it gets introduced). That was a very interesting meeting-- we got briefed on that one by some of the members of the Energy and Natural Resources committee-- basically they said that Jeff would be just listening and smiling and nodding, which I pretty much did too!
The last meeting of the day was the Energy Committee hearing about Wildfire preparedness, which definitely could have been MUCH more interesting... but really it was pretty boring. Jessica and I pretty much stared off into space and doodled... So in conclusion, I think it would be cool to be a Senator, but also pretty boring at times. He was pretty busy all day (we didn't get to go with him to everything that he did), but it was definitely very interesting to get some insight into what our elected officials do in a day! :)
After work, I met Cecily for a late dinner... well, she had dinner and Jessica and I had DESSERT!!! It was quite delicious, but we really should have split something... because we both only had about half of our dessert... oh well. It was delicious!
Thursday: Awkward day! Jessica and I gave a tour to middle and high school history teachers from CO and Northern NM... and 3 of them were from Los Alamos... and they all knew me... Luckily, it wasn't too bad. I think the worst part was probably when they decided that they needed a picture with me for their slide show when they show the little middle schoolers their trip to DC. Of course when we got to the rotunda, we went to see the statue of Po Pay (one of the 2 NM statues), and they ALL knew more about him than me and Jess did together (oops... my 7th grade NM history teacher was there...) We took more pictures for the Intern Website (just because we want it to be super awesome).
After work, I went to hang out with Cecily again... and I (of course) utilized her FREE LAUNDRY... and we hung out for a while, watched TV, and then went wandering around, kinda near the White House. We went to the Barnes & Noble for a while, and then went to a really good smelling Mexican restaurant (because Cec was hungry). I didn't have anything to eat, but it did smell good... which doesn't really mean much...
Friday: So first thing, we went to the Democratic Policy Committee hearing on contractors in Iraq, specifically a Haliburton company branch called KBR. It was an interesting hearing, but I was really tired, so I started falling asleep in it... but it was interesting to hear first hand accounts about the things happening in Iraq, not directly related to combat. The people testifying were working at a water treatment plant where there were contaminants in the air & water where they were working, and it affected everyone there, US military, contractors, and Iraqis. Very interesting stuff...
We went to lunch at a Chinese place in Chinatown, which is pretty much 1 block long. Now I have never been to Chinatown anywhere else, but I'm pretty sure that LA, SF, and NY all have better Chinatowns than DC. Anywho, we had some pretty good Chinese food, which was good. Later that night, we were hanging out in our room and Jess was going to go out, so she invited us to hang out at her boy toy, Dave's house/ apartment. We all headed out to Adams Morgen but by the time we got there, they had decided to go to a bar... and half of us were underage, so we just went off to Whitney's apartment, watched TV, and then crashed for the night. Fun times...
Saturday: After we got back from Whitney's, Jill and I decided to go out to Dupont Circle to get Krispy Kreme... and then we decided to walk back through Georgetown, which was really fun just to walk around and pretend like we were rich by going into really high class stores... That was a lot of fun. So then we came back and hung out in our room for a while and then Jess decided that we should go to the mall. So we headed out to Pentagon City to got to the mall. We wandered around there for a while and then came back to our room to have dinner at about 8 PM.
Sunday: We actually got up pretty early & left our apartment by 8:30! We went over to the Washington Monument to get tickets to go up to the top later in the day! Then we headed over to a really good brunch place off of the Mall and had some fabulous eats. We wandered around, ended up walking into a Borders for about an hour, and then headed over to Eastern Market (on the East side of Capitol Hill). It's like a flea market, similar to the open air market in New Orleans. It was a lot of fun to walk around and look at all of the local vendor's stuff. We walked inside where they basically have a fresh everything market, and we ended up getting cookies and fresh-squeezed lemonade. It was quite delicious. Then we left and needed somewhere out of the sun, preferably with a/c to sit for about an hour before we headed back to the Wash Mon. So we walked over to the public library on the SE side (right near the Eastern Market). It was a cute little library. Literally LITTLE. Then we headed out and went to the top of the monument... and then we headed home for an early arrival!
Overall, this was definitely the best week I have had so far. I got to do a lot of things, and I started hanging out in a setting outside the walls of our apartment, which was really nice. I am really starting to love it here... but I am also very ready to come home. So one more week... and then we will see what happens from there. It is really weird thinking that I will be starting lifeguarding next Monday at 8 am (well, sort of... orientation at least).
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