Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Montana

There were many, many perks associated with my job this summer at National Defense University. One of these was the travel--the trips we take with our international officers. For as much as I love to travel, I couldn't believe that I actually got paid to travel with this job!

The first trip of the year for the Fellows is to Montana. Fresh air, cold water, good food, and lots of wide open spaces.

I love wide open spaces.

Since I work with the military, I flew military air for the first time. It was a thrill, I tell you what. One of my coworkers told me, "Just wait until you see the lunches they pack for us. There is so much meat."

I didn't really believe her until I saw the sandwich:
Yep, totally felt like a carnivore eating this. And I'm just gonna say that yes, I did eat all of that turkey.
I also got practice as a flight attendent, and my coworkers and I passed out all of the lunches. And they were personal orders, too, so I got to see if I could recognize all of the officers' names and faces. I only gave the wrong lunch to one person. Yep, feeling pretty proud about that.

One thing I love about being "back west" is the amount of food served at social functions. For some reason I felt like people were always skimping on the cheese and meat in DC. But the table spreads in Montana were luscious and abundant. And the cheese! There was so much cheese. Cheese for our sandwiches, cheese in my scrambled eggs, cheese on the potatoes--there was enough cheese to make me happy for a week!
The meal on the left was lunch. And the spread on the right? Hors d'oeuvres--before dinner! My coworkers and I had to keep telling the Fellows that dinner (steak and potatoes) was waiting inside and they shouldn't get full yet!
Clearly, a good time was had by all.

My hotel room was humongous. I have seriously never stayed in such a large hotel room in my life. It was easily 8x the size of my apartment in DC (not hard to do, since I slept in a box only a little bigger than most Americans' closets). Before we left my boss turned to me and my coworker Elizabeth and said, "I'm really sorry, but you two are going to have to share a room in Montana." (Usually staff members get their own rooms.) What he didn't mention was that we were in a suite--with two rooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen (with dishwasher and fridge and freezer), a balcony, a living room, and a washer and dryer (with Tide included!).

It was pretty awesome.

The second day we were in Bigfork, Montana, we had a sweet tour of Glacier National Park on these awesome red busses.

The tour guide for my bus was super nice and had been to Salt Lake several times. When he found out I'm Mormon and from Utah, he said, "Well, I tell you what. Mormons are some of the nicest people I've ever met. They sure know how to be friendly!"

Naturally, I was thrilled that he had such a good impression of us!



We went shotgun shooting one of the days. I was absolutely terrified that I wouldn't hit any, especially since I was with 65 men and there were only two of us females. 

And looking at my form, you wouldn't be surprised if you heard how many I missed at the beginning!
Don't worry, I got much better. And I actually hit 8 pigeons (which is more than some of the officers!).

Montana = horseback riding through the mountains.
We toured the Montana state capital

And had a boat tour of the river.

We also went white water rafting (sorry, but the only picture I have of that is sitting in a box in Utah. And I'm in Jerusalem), attended a pow-wow on an Indian Reservation, and went to Yellowstone. Those pictures will have to come later--because really, I want everyone to see my pictures of Yellowstone. Because they're awesome.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

My Daily Commute

So I have about 100 blog posts that I want to write about. And approximately 8 days until I am in Israel with tons and tons of things to blog about but even less time. Which means, dear readers, you will be gypped of some blog posts. Sorry.

But this post will be about my daily commute. Because really, sometimes it is the most interesting part of my day.

For most of the summer I lived in Georgetown, which is right in the middle of The District. My commute to work was pretty simple: leave the house by 6:33, walk 6.5 minutes to the Foggy Bottom metro stop, run down the escalator stairs, catch either the blue or orange line to L'Enfant plaza (about an 11 minute ride), take my work shuttle to the Coast Guard building (7-9 minutes), and then walk to my building. 4 legs of the journey, 27 minutes of travel, and I'm at work.

It was great.

Unfortunately commute-wise (but fortunately living-situation wise) I couldn't stay in Georgetown forever. There came a time when I had to move on. I found a beautiful house (for a beautiful price) up in Maryland, just two miles away from a Metro stop. It was a beautiful house, a beautiful neighborhood, and a beautiful life, but naturally it changed my commute from 27 minutes to 1-1.5 hours (depending on the wait time between transfers).

My new commute went something like this: Run out of my house and down the hill to the bus stop, catch the 6:48 bus to the Wheaton metro station, run down the escalator stairs of the longest single-span escalator in the Western Hemisphere (and which was broken most days), jump on the red line metro to Ft. Totten, transfer to the green line and ride it to L'Enfant plaza, get on my work shuttle, get off at the Coast Guard building, and walk into work.

If the bus came right at 6:48, didn't have more than 2 stops for people, and only had to wait for one red light, I would get to the metro stop with enough time to run down the escalator and make the 6:59 metro--that is, if the escalator was working. Unfortunately a working escalator is quite a rare find in the Washington, DC metro, so I had to run down this thing every day.

Looking up
Looking down

Intimidating, no? Friends, this is what I faced every day. I think I lost 5 pounds running up and down those steps. It was such a great free exercise program.

Anyway, if I made the 6:59 metro, I could make it to Ft. Totten, run down the stairs, catch the green line train to L'Enfant, get on the shuttle, and make it to work by 7:48. However, if I missed the 6:59 train, I had to wait 6 minutes for the next train, and then just miss a green line train at Ft. Totten and wait another 6 minutes for the next train and then have to wait another 5 minutes for the shuttle to fill up at L'Enfant, getting me to work a little after 8.

Yep, commuting in DC requires enormous amounts of strategic planning (and a fair bit of running!).

The commute home was the same, except sometimes I walked the two miles from the metro stop to my house. The bus only comes every 30 minutes, and if I just missed it it was faster to walk.

Unfortunately, it only comes every 30 minutes in the morning, too, so if I missed the 6:48 bus I either had to wait until 7:18 or walk in the heat and humidity. It's not a bad walk, but the damage done to my straight hair just wasn't worth it to me. Because really, the choice between dealing with hair ruined by humidity all day or being late to work and having to work late to make up for it is a simple choice. I hate dealing with hair ruined by humidity.

I used to try and make the 6:18 bus, thus getting me to work 30 minutes earlier and giving me more time to study Hebrew after work before going home, but after I missed it four days in a row (and finally realized that it came at 6:16, not 6:18, which is why I missed it every day), I decided it wasn't worth it.

My commute might sound a little dreadful, but it is actually quite productive. As I am about to take off for graduate school in Jerusalem, my one focus in life right now besides work is Hebrew. I'm hoping to test into a higher level of Hebrew than I tested into at the beginning of the summer, so I bought two Hebrew textbooks and take them with me everywhere. I study it on the bus, on the metro, on the shuttle, and for an hour and a half after work before I commute home. When my building was evacuated after the hurricane last week, my Hebrew textbook was the only thing I took outside with me. :)

Commuting is also fun because of the people you meet--especially if you see them every day as you run down the escalator steps to catch the train! There are two especially quirky things about me that are memorable: my noisy shoes and my Hebrew textbook. As usual, my shoes broke a little while ago. The heel covering broke off of both of my shoes on both pairs that I wear to work, making the plastic/metal exposed bottom of my already loud shoes clank loudly against tile floors, cement sidewalks, and escalator stairs.

Especially escalator stairs.

When I run down the Wheaton escalator in the mornings, I never have to ask people to move aside so I can catch my train because they can hear me coming from the second I walk into the station! My purposeful stride is a very measured "clank clank clank," but running down the escalator sounds like "clankclunkclankclunkclankclunkclank."

At the L'Enfant plaza metro there is a shuttle coordinator that stands outside the shuttle I take to work. One morning as I passed her and said "good morning," she said, "I can always tell when you're coming because I can hear your shoes!"

Yeah. They're pretty noisy.

Anyway. In addition to my shoes, my Hebrew textbook is also somewhat of an anomaly. For some reason it is a huge conversation starter, even though me sitting on the metro with my headphones in, my concentration face on, and my face buried in a huge 500 page Hebrew textbook is not exactly the image of the most approachable person on the train, right?

Wrong. I will share three stories to illustrate my point.

One day I was coming home from work and I sat down by a woman wearing a hijab. I pulled out my Hebrew book and started memorizing vocabulary, when all of a sudden the woman looked at what I was reading, pulled out her headphones, and asked, "Are you studying Hebrew?"

I pulled my own headphones out, answered in the affirmative, and was shocked to hear her say, "I've always wanted to learn Hebrew!"

Turns out she was from Qatar, had studied at a university in Virginia, and had just graduated in international relations. Random that she wanted to study Hebrew, but very cool. We exchanged numbers and now we're friends on facebook--which means that this is the start to a very meaningful friendship. :)

One day I was standing against the wall next to the escalator stairs, trying to finish a muffin as quickly as possible before going into the metro station. I had my back to the doors to outside and I was holding my Hebrew book with one hand and my muffin with the other. I was clearly not the picture of approachability. This guy walked past me, did a double take, and stopped and asked, "Are you studying Hebrew?" When I answered in the affirmative, he somewhat too-enthusiastically said, "Me too! I study at the such-and-such place downtown! Where are you studying?"

I think he almost fell over with excitement when I told him I was going to study in Jerusalem!

And the third experience. I had just left a Nationals game that I had gone to with my coworkers. It was late at night and I was, naturally, studying Hebrew with my headphones in. The guy sitting in the seat behind me tapped me on the shoulder and asked, "Did you go to Brandeis?" (The textbook was a Brandeis Hebrew textbook). Unfortunately, this time I had to answer no, but it turns out that he had gone to Brandeis, and randomly, the guy sitting next to him had lived near Brandeis and his parents had taught there. It was like a metro reunion of me reading a Brandeis textbook, a guy who studied Biology at Brandeis, and a guy whose parents had taught there.

Crazy.

Anyway, my commute this summer has been filled with crazy stories that will hopefully one day be told. Until then, though, you can all be jealous that you don't have random strangers talking to you about Hebrew on your daily commute!

Sunday, August 21, 2011

10 Things I Love About You

Dear DC, I think I'm in love. With you. I've known for quite some time, but now that I'm about to leave, I wanted to express it publicly. You changed my life, and it's about time I wrote down why. My upcoming stint with Israel is making me miss you already. So in no particular order, here are 10 things I love about you (I had to keep it to 10, but seriously I could go on forever).

1. My job. Dear DC, the main reason I came out here was for my awesome internship with National Defense University. I wanted to check out the DC scene and working for the government at a military installation with international people seemed the best way to get a full picture of what DC had to offer. I'm pretty sure I got a rose-tinted picture, but it was AWESOME. I now have dear, dear friends from more than 60 countries, I got to travel to three different states and stay in some really nice hotels, I helped teach an ESOL summer camp (which included teaching and playing on the playground with children from the Maldives, Jordan, Israel, Sri Lanka, Turkey, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Pakistan, Tunisia, South Africa, Japan, and Panama), I gained a much fuller picture about what I want to do in graduate school and how, I totally got to practice my mad language skills, and I had the best coworkers a person could ask for. I also overcame my deep water fears and jumped off a huge bridge into a river, learned how to shoot a shotgun (and actually hit a few clay pigeons!), learned 60 different English accents (although unfortunately I didn't learn how to imitate them), and found out, once again, that my drawing skills are atrocious. My job this summer changed my life, and I loved every second of it. Of all the things I will miss here, I will miss my job in the International Student Management Office at National Defense University the most.



2. The Free Things. DC, you were so easy to love because so many awesome things were free. The original flag that inspired the Star Spangled Banner? In the National Museum for American History, one of the Smithsonians. Free. Islamic art? Ancient Chinese jade? African sculptures? Old spy planes and space shuttles? The Hope diamond? The zoo? All things found in the Smithsonians, and all free to visit. Oh, and did I mention that the Dali Lama came to DC? Free speech on the Mall.


Want to see a monument to the signers of the Declaration of Independence? Or the Vietnam, WWI, or WWII memorials? Or the Washington Monument, or a tour of the Capitol or the White House, or the Lincoln or Jefferson memorial? All free. There were free events almost every night at various locations around the city, so much so that I just couldn't keep up. Case in point: the Kennedy Center had free concerts every weeknight at 6. Totally free. Just walk in, sit down, and be cultured. And did I mention that there is free wireless at the Smithsonians and the Library of Congress?

Plus, walking's always free!

3. Driving on Rock Creek Parkway and over the 14th Street bridge into DC. Actually, driving anywhere in DC is a thrill. I want to thank my job and Matilda, my old car, for the joy I get in driving in DC. (Even though I had to part ways with Matilda before I came out here, I credit her with my deep love of driving and the thrill I get every time I'm behind the wheel.) Sure, traffic's bad occasionally, parking is horrendous, and people have this odd habit of parking in the middle of the road, but there are some beautiful roadways in DC. Like Rock Creek Parkway. I seriously feel like I am driving on some of my favorite Provo roads when I'm on that road. There's nothing like the thrill I get when I drive past the Washington Monument, or the Capitol, or the Potomac river. Riding in a car naturally takes a backseat to driving, but I also appreciate all those moments that I haven't had to utilize public transportation and some nice soul gave me a ride. But thank you, dear job, for giving me opportunities to drive.

4. Old friends and new friends in DC. I was thrilled to find that in addition to my several friends that I already knew living in DC, a few more of my friends decided to move out here. Sean Strebel, Rachel Cannon, and Sarah Shumway were my contacts when I first moved in, and then Sheryl Tubbs moved to DC, Noelle Teh moved to Philadelphia (just to hours away), and Shalayne Davis moved to Virginia just two hours south of DC. Once I got here I realized that many of my other friends, including Lindsey and Brett Anderson, also lived in the close vicinity. My time in DC could not have been shared with cooler people--plus I met some pretty awesome people out here! I never had a dull moment with such awesome friends.








5. Cupcakes, cruises, and other outings with Sarah and Melissa. I won't say much about the difficulty of once again living in a communal living situation with a bunch of youngsters from BYU. My two saving graces were named Sarah and Melissa. They were both returned missionaries and graduating in August, like me, and dang we had some good times together. From exploring the Masonic temple in Philadelphia to getting caught in a huge rainstorm walking around the Tidal Basin to getting free Chocktaw days t-shirts (celebrating Melissa's Chocktaw heritage) to eating free "birthday" cupcakes on our Groupon-provided cruise on the Potomac to our "feminist power" night at Serendipity (celebrated with frozen hot chocolate and stealthy rearranging of furniture to watch Sherlock Holmes) things were a laugh a minute with these two. This last month in DC has been really lonely without them, but friends like this don't just disappear forever. When our paths cross again, it will be a sweet, sweet reunion (and I might even bring cupcakes!).





6. Fall in DC. Ok, so I never actually experienced Fall in DC. It makes my heart ache just thinking about the beautiful weather and scenery that I won't see when Fall happens to DC. But I guess it's just another reason to come back, eh? But the other day I was driving on Rock Creek Parkway and the sky was overcast and the leaves were falling and it felt like Autumn.

But since I couldn't experience Fall in DC, I guess the next best thing was the rain. I love rain, especially if it happens in the evening and not in the morning on my way to work (because it messes up my hair, like, all day. Seriously.). There have been a couple of times when the sky just opened up and dumped buckets and buckets of water on the buildings, the ground, and unsuspecting pedestrians. And it was AWESOME.

One night around 11:30 it started raining hardcore. I couldn't let this opportunity pass me by, so I grabbed my keys and ran outside. I walked down to an overpass just down the street from my house and just stood there, umbrellaless, letting the rain just pour down. I guess it looked really scary and suspicious to passers-by, though (a female standing on the bridge looking over the edge without an umbrella in the middle of a huge rainstorm at midnight) and at least five different people asked, "Ma'am, are you ok?" as they walked by. I seriously think they thought I was going to jump. But really I was just enjoying the rain.

Since I can't find any pictures of the rain, I guess the next best thing is a sunset after a rainstorm. Love those clouds.


7. The government/military ID that was required for my job. Now, I know that this seems like such a strange and trivial thing to love. But this ID card changed my life, people. I can't even begin to tell you the lines I bypassed and the places I got into with this ID. When I went to the Pentagon and the State Department I got a "no escort required" badge, I once got into an embassy without having to get searched when the man at the gate saw me wearing this, and I almost got a military discount from Sally Beauty when I showed this ID with my debit card (and then I told her I wasn't military, sadly). CAC card, I will miss you.

8. The DC Temple. Guys. This place is beautiful. So beautiful it causes accidents on I-395 because it just rises up out of nothingness. It's also huge and overwhelming and towers over everything in the vicinity. And the grounds are gorgeous.

Did I mention that the inside is also spectacularly beautiful? And part of my time in DC was spent living closer to this temple than I lived to the Provo temple? What a dream.



9. Mormon Day with my coworker Keri. One of my coworkers, Keri, was an intern just about to start her senior year at the University of North Carolina. She kind of freaked out on the first day when we were chatting and she found out that six of us in the ISMO office were Mormon. "Wow," she told me. "You guys have just tripled the number of Mormons I have ever met in my life."

It was great fun to have Keri around to help me realize just how quirky us Mormons/West Coasters could be. I taught her what "biffed it" means and she introduced me to the South Park episode on Mormons (which was surprising much more positive and much less crude than I was expecting!). Her last night in DC we went to Cafe Rio (there are two out in the DC area, one of which is about 15 minutes away from where I live now!), a necessary Utah experience, and then went and had a picnic on the DC Temple grounds. Basically the whole summer working and hanging out with Keri was awesome, and it was always fun to laugh with her at the quirkiness of Utah people. Keri was so great and offered to take my turn at the alcohol-serving table at some of our work events, and her last day of work she spilled coffee all over her white shirt and I used my magic (and my Tide pen) to get it all out. Life in DC would just not have been the same without Keri.




10. DC has character. And I just love it. Other places have character, too, but there is something special about the different areas of DC. Georgetown, U Street, Southeast, Adams-Morgan, Capitol Hill, Dupont Circle, Chinatown--all of these places could be their own city with their own flair and personality. And instead they all happen to be squished inside the same city, adding to the diversity and excitement.

I mean, just look at this character. Where else can you find alley ways and houses and doors like this?






I have to admit, I just might have cried just a little bit when writing this post. Because my life in DC has been incredible and spectacular and amazing (even with the intense heat and withering humidity, the crowds and the tourists, the high prices, and the dizzying pace at which I live my life). And even though I am sure my next stage of life will be incredible and spectacular and amazing, it's hard to leave such a beautiful life for the unknown.

So DC, it's been fun. Even though exciting times lie ahead, part of my heart will stay here. I guess I'll just have to come back and retrieve it at some time in the future, eh?