As you may or may not know, I'm currently residing in Washington D.C. for the next three months or so. This decision came late last summer when I was figuring out what I really wanted to do in my senior year and when asking myself that, I realized I wanted to do something completely different. And different is what I definitely got coming here!
Washington D.C., how do I describe it? First, there seems to be a sense of urgency and purpose in the air that rushes through the lungs of the people in DC. Despite the chaotic streets during rush hour, each person always seems to have an end destination, a pinpoint mapping their next move. Rush hour doesn't just involve cars here, it involves people fighting their ways through doors of the metro cars that seems to open for much too short of just a moment. I'm surprised people don't get crushed in between these doors--but then again, that's probably because everyone, except me, are probably all metro pros. Innately inscribed into their DC-ness, each person knows that when going up and down an escalator, the right side is for those who would like to stand, and the left side is for those who would like to walk. That's definitely a good rule to know when you're trying to avoid being Simba caught in a wildebeest stampede.
But what fascinates me the most in the short two weeks that I've been here is how the city is laid out. The juxtaposition of the historic architecture against the modern eleven story steel structure is beautiful. You'll see lines of embassies right next to a Safeway or a Starbucks, The White House (of course heavily guarded) neighbors with a CVS, and sprouts of museums and monuments intertwined into the structures of business buildings. This is definitely the reason why I've been lost on several occasions. There seems to be a CVS or a Starbucks next to a Dupont Circle or a "_____" Circle at every corner.
But I'm not complaining here. I love getting lost because it'll direct me to a quaint little bookstore, coffee shop, or a shopping center. The first weeks, I was wandering away without a purpose; walking through the city with my Google Maps app open in one hand and my metro card in the other. But as I started my internship this past week, I found myself walking fast with a pinpoint destination. Does this mean I'm a native DC yet? Probably not, but as I explore the city and reclaim the history that makes the United States what it is, I'll hopefully skin the surface of being a native DC-ian. But that does mean I have to conquer the cold, which I'm afraid I have not yet done. I won't go into detail about my experiences with the cold because that'll be a whole new entry in itself, but let's just say, this involves double and triple layering every clothing item from head to toe.
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| The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal built between 1817 & 1825 |
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| Trails leading to the White House |
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| Small but delicious coffee shop tucked away in an ally |
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