Here Come that [Girl] From the Capital City

Due to the number of requests for stories from DC and my unwillingness to tell the same stories multiple times, I've decided to start up the blog again! Hurray! It is slightly delayed, since I've been a resident of the nation's capital for a little over three weeks, but there's still eight more to go, so I think I can make up for lost time. At the moment, I'm waiting for an email with directions for stuffing envelopes, so I have a small piece of time.

In an effort to compress the past three weeks into a manageable amount of time, I'll start with saying that Washington, DC is the most amazing city on the East Coast. I consider Pittsburgh the beginning of the Midwest, so there's no competition, just the amazingness of both. I'm living at the Tenley campus of American University, which is in the Northwest portion of DC.

Tenleytown is about 3/4 of a mile from the main AU campus, which is a perfect distance when going to the gym on main...a good warm-up distance the way there, and a great cool-down on the way back!

Tenley campus consists of five or six buildings that are almost entirely dorms. I learned that during the regular school year, they are used for interning students (like myself in the summer) because of the proximity to the metro. It takes less time for me to walk to the metro in the mornings than it did to walk to the Cathedral of Learning from my dorm! Aside from the metro, Tenley also has a nice array of stores and restaurants; there's a Starbucks, Chipotle, Z burger (delicious milkshakes), Payless Shoes, Best Buy, a Safeway, Whole Foods, etc. It's the perfect little college town - not much to do, but plenty of food. The kids on my floor are also pretty great. The ones who moved in around the same time I did are definitely the most sociable (even if they are the most awkward); I have a feeling it's in large part because I'm so determined to make everyone be friends. There's actually a lot of kids from around the Pittsburgh area, and I've met people from Penn State, Dayton, Duke, Syracuse, Dennison, and Harvard, to name a few.

Most of my time at Tenley is spent doing one of three things; sleeping, going to the gym, or playing ultimate frisbee. The first week I was here, there was a knock on my door that turned out to be two AU students who asked if I was interested in pick-up frisbee...absolutely! I wasn't sure whether to go or not the first day, but as it turns out, I've made some really good friends through frisbee. It's a mixture of AU students and interns like myself, and we play Mondays and Thursdays from 7-9 at a field right at the Tenley campus. Frisbee has become my motivation to work out (so I can keep sprinting for two hours at a time), a stress relief from work, and guaranteed time with my friends.

I recently got a roommate, as well. After three weeks of AU refusing to tell me even what DAY she would be moving in, I came back from meeting a friend for lunch on Sunday to find a roommate! From only two days of living with Bailey, I think we'll get along just wonderfully. She goes to a tiny Christian college in Texas, and is involved with a local sorority at school. One of the first things she said to me was "I'm a true Texas girl, which means I'm all about big hair, hot rollers, and J.Crew clothing." While I can't relate to styling the long hair any more, I completely understand the J.Crew clothing part! So far we have very similar taste in music, tv shows, clothing styles, working out, and needing background noise at all times, so I think it'll work out well. At least I won't get made of for saying "y'all" occasionally from Bailey. She's interning on Capitol Hill for a Texas congressman, so we get to share fun stories from our internships since they're worlds different.

I do actually go to that internship down here in

DC, even though it may not sound like it so far. I'm interning for the Development department at the American Forest Foundation, a sustainable management non-profit that works with something in the area of 65,000 tree farmers in the United States. Development is basically fund-raising; without my department, there would be no money to run AFF. We host events, supervise grant-writing and application, and work closely with the PR department to get our name out in the world in a positive light. One of the best things about my office is that of the 25 or so full-time staff, at least7 or 8 went to Allegheny College, and at least 3 (including my boss) worked for Creek Connections in college, so I immediately had a connection to at least a few people here. Every time someone in the office finds out I'm from near Pittsburgh, I have to add "...but I DON'T go to Allegheny College."

I am, at the moment, the interim Development Coordinator, due to a current vacancy in the position. Basically, it means I do a lot more work than your every day development intern, but I get to do things like attend an event in Vermont in July, as well as sit in on senior staff meetings (the latter is also largely because my boss is senior staff and wants to expose me to as

much as possible.) Right now, we're in the midst of planning three large events and one smaller one, two of which are this week and two in July. This week, we're attending a happy hour fundraiser held by the Women's Group of AFF, and hosting an open house at the office to provide a better understanding of what we do to our funders. July brings a Branching Out even (again, with our Women's Group) in Burlington, VT, which will be similar to the event Mom, Wendy, and I attended in Pittsburgh in March. Later that month will be our largest fundraiser of the year, It's Ours to Save. It's an evening of stories and performances by Chuck Leavell, the keyboardist for the Rolling Stones and a legendary tree-farmer and conservationist. If anyone you know will be in Chicago around July 17th, tell them to check out www.forestfoundation.org/concert2010.html it should be a lot of fun!!

In addition to working, there are WEEKENDS! My favorite part of being in this city are the weekends, because then I can explore! I'm working my way through all of the touristy things; museums, monuments, Chinatown, Dupont Circle, etc. It helps that one of my sorority sisters, Julie, has been interning here for ABCNews since January - she can help me find new places to see! One of Julie's friends is interning in between here and Baltimore, so Scotty comes into the city some weekends to sightsee and explore with

us! So far, we've seen the Vietnam, the Lincoln, WWII, the Washington, bits of Chinatown and GWU, Dupont Circle, U Street (we went to an amazing Ethiopian restaurant) and other random stuff. I've also been to the museums of Natural and American History, the National Gallery of Art, Union Station, the Capital Pride parade, the National Cathedral, Pentagon City Mall, and a few other random places. My friend Marissa and I have plans to go to a national park in the area with swimming and rock climbing, and sometime soon I plan to go to the Eastern Market, a big flea market/farmer's market held on weekends. One of my neighbors from Pitt this year lives right around one of the metro stops on the Orange line, so two weekends ago I was able to take a break from the city and go to his house for a few hours. It was a nice break, when I could be in a small town again and see trees everywhere, and a real house with a yard and a family and a dog. That will absolutely be happening again in the near future!

In a (rather large) nutshell, that about sums up my DC experience so far! :)