Washington D.C.
On June 4th I flew out to Baltimore where my Aunt Carol Beth and Uncle Rick were gracious enough to pick me up. They were hosting a going away party that evening, so we ate some lunch, did some grocery shopping, and prepared a few things around the house. Then I took a nap because I had to get up at 5 to leave for the airport. The evening festivities were fun; I met all of their friends who came over, and then spent a decent amount of time playing ping-pong in the basement with two grade school age girls who had come with their parents. The next day I opted to watch the Nadal-Federer final instead of go to church, and I was fortunate enough to turn on the TV just as McEnroe was saying, “That was perhaps the best 30 minutes of a first set that I’ve ever seen.”
At any rate, it was still a great match, though it seems to be growing more and more difficult to assert Federer as the greatest of all time given his 8-17 record lifetime against Nadal, including a 2-7 record in majors and a 2-6 record in major finals. I guess we have to see where Nadal ends up in the major count, but it doesn’t seem to be necessary for him to best Federer’s 16 to join the conversation. Certainly he isn’t quite in that top tier yet with Fed, Sampras, and Lendl, but he’s getting there.
Anyway…later that afternoon my aunt and uncle were very helpful and drove me into DC to move into my apartment at George Washington University. My building is named The West End, and I am living in a quad. One of my three roommates is Paul Ream, who can be found in this post about my trip to Madrid and this more recent post about his visit later to Vienna. My other two roommates are from the University of Pennsylvania, and despite the fact that they’re both from Massachusetts they didn’t know each other before moving in here. Both of them (Ben and Ryan) are really nice guys and have been fun to hang out with so far.
Our apartment, however, has a rather odd set-up. Through the door is an entrance hallway. From this hallway to the left is the ‘bedroom’ that Paul and I share. There is not, however, any door to this room – it is completely open and there is no privacy (which isn’t really needed…but is nice to have). From our room, there is a door that leads to a living area and kitchen. Back in the entrance hall, on the right there is a door that leads to Ben and Ryan’s room, so they have more privacy, except that on the other side of their room is our bathroom. So both bedrooms are entranceways to other rooms, which to me seems to be a reasonably poor set-up.
Still, the building is in a great part of the city. Uncle Rick and Aunt Carol helped me check in and move my stuff up, and then they took me to the store and bought me a few necessary grocery items. Afterwards they dropped me at my apartment once more and turned around and headed home to prepare for their trip to Seattle.
Shortly after they left a good friend of mine from abroad, Katie Mixon, came over to say hello. A little more about Katie can be found in my account of the trip we both took to Hallstatt and Graz last year. She’s going to be a senior (International Relations major) here at GWU and lives close by, so she came over to say welcome and show me around for a while. We walked for a while and she pointed a few things out, but eventually I was just very confused, turned around, and hungry, so we ended up eating at a place named the Thunder Burger. She used to work there, and the theme was pretty interesting, but most importantly the burgers were amazing.
After we had eaten and talked for a while, Katie Lovett, a Davidson friend (and my roommate Patrick’s girlfriend) showed up to also say hello. (More on Katie Lovett and her visit to Vienna can be found in this post.) The three of us chatted for a while (the Katies know each other through me and Patrick and their time spent in DC) and then walked back towards my apartment. Katie Mixon went to see some other friends and Katie Lovett went back with me to help me put a few more things away and to see where I was living. This could get remarkably confusing if I see them both a lot more this summer. And I plan on doing that. Uh oh.
The next morning I got up and went to work. I think my next post is going to be mostly about what I do at work, so I’m going to finish this one just by saying that I live about 3 minutes from the Foggy Bottom metro station and I ride the metro one stop to get to the Rosslyn stop, and from there it is maybe 2 minutes to my office. So on a good day I can make the commute in 10 minutes, which is awesome because it has been super hot here so far and the less time I spend getting sweaty in the heat the better.
This week was reasonably low-key. I work from 930 to 6 every day, so most days by the time I get home I am really hungry and tired. Monday night I went to Katie Lovett’s apartment in the Georgetown area, cooked dinner with her and her roommate Whitley Raney (a Davidson student), and watched a couple episodes of How I Met Your Mother. Tuesday I went to TGIFridays with my roommate Ben to watch the Dallas Mavericks-Miami Heat NBA finals game. Wednesday I hung out with Katie Mixon (yeah, this is already annoying) again. We ate at a restaurant named Chop’t, which is a salad place with Chipotle-style ordering (you pick your kind of lettuce, what you want in it, dressing, etc.). Thursday I just ate at home and watched a basketball game with some guys next door. I’ll save this first weekend and work stuff for another post, hopefully that one will include more pictures too?
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