Its so weird to be back from Winter break and back in the swing of things! Although really I am getting a late start, so I should be thankful. i had the opportunity to go to Washington DC for a ten day seminar with The Washington Center. (if you are really into politics then you should defiantly check them out because they have a lot of great opportunities as far as seminars and internships in DC) So I went down for the Inauguration seminar, to see Obama take his oath of office! Although in the end I ended up watching from my apartment... read on to learn why...
So we flew down January 10th and made our way to our apartment complex, which was right off the metro, but in North Bethesda, MD. The apartment was wicked nice, but due to over booking the seminar, due to high demand, there were six people forced into every 2 bedroom/four bed apartment. So it was a little crowded but really exciting to get to experience this new city and be there for such a historic event.
The seminars themselves were interesting, but sometimes ran a little long, from 830am til 1pm with no breaks. I was sick for the trip too, which made it even more challenging to get through the long days, but some of the speakers were really interesting. I am a Public relations major, but I have a high interest in politics, so it was really cool to be able to hear from Dana Bash, a CNN corespondent, or the press secretary from the Bush administration. We also heard from the ambassador from Pakistan, a secret service agent and many many other speakers with great insight. But the really fun part for me were the group site visits and the individual site seeing that we got to do.
The most interesting site visit that we got to go on, in my opinion, was the Israeli embassy. Here we learned more about the Israel/Gaza conflict, which I was not really well informed of, and more about Israel in general. We also got to go to the Capital building for a tour, the Human Rights Campaign(where we all got little shopping guides as to how to shop LGBT friendly), and the Heritage Foundation. On my own I went to the Holocaust Museum, and three of the Smithsonian's (Air and Space, Art Gallery, and American History). I tried to go to the international spy museum but that mission failed several times so i guess next time I am there I will have to try again.
We also went to the concert for Obama, the Sunday before the Inauguration. It was pretty cool to see Bruce Springsteen and others perform, even if we were a mile and a half back watching them on a jumbo-tron. While we were getting off the metro, I nearly lost my roommate Whitney in the crowd and had to pull her though. We got pushed around so much on our journey to the concert, that we couldn't imagine how bad the actual inauguration would have been with three times more people. Turns out that another friend on the trip left our apartments at 4am, waited in line for five and a half hours to get told the mall was full and she could either go stand behind the monument or just go to the parade, instead she came and watched in her PJ's with us!
All in all it was a good trip, and a great learning experience, I wish I had been less sick to be able to get more out of it, but I still feel like it was a great experience, and I got class credit for it!
Anyway, I am happy to be back in Boston at home :) and school.
ok... well I have to go give a tour! talk to you later!
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